Mr Wilson, whose home was cordoned off, appears to have been the second “hedge-rage” fatality in Lincolnshire in little more than a month.
Douglas Reed, 74, of Louth, was gardening for a widowed friend when he collapsed and died during a row with a neighbour, George Tubb, in May. The incident, over which no charges have yet been brought, was also thought to have been caused by a hedge separating two semi-detached homes.
One of the highest-profile examples of leylandii wars was the jailing last August of Malcolm Girling, 57, and his wife, Marlene, 54, for cutting down a border hedge in Norfolk. In July 2002, a retired civil servant was shot dead in a dispute with a neighbour over a hedge.
There are an estimated 100,000 hedge disputes in Britain. They have provoked such anger that Parliament is debating the High Hedges Bill, which would allow councils to trim plants such as leylandii. Residents whose homes and gardens are overshadowed by hedges are unable to have them cut back because planning law covers only buildings.
The Bill, put forward by Stephen Pound, Labour MP for Ealing North, would extend regulations to cover hedges, enabling householders to apply to councils for orders to have them cut back if neighbours will not trim them voluntarily. Previous attempts to tackle the problems caused by leylandii conifers, which can reach 12 metres (40ft), have failed when Bills have run out of time.
Michael Jones, president of Hedgeline, a campaign group set up after the 75-year-old former teacher was involved in a leylandii dispute, said that problems were caused by a “deep-seated, territorial instinct” and the fact that “an Englishman’s home is his castle”.
Pending legislation - the Bill is due to reach its final reading in the next parliamentary session - Hedgeline has published a code of practice for hedgegrowers to tackle problems such as subsidence and the blocking out of neighbours’ light.
The seven-point code advises hedge owners to prevent the plants growing to “oppressive heights”; not to grow them so that they cut out natural light or dry out the soil or affect the appearance and value of a neighbour’s home.
CASUALTIES OF THE HEDGE WARS
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Douglas Reed died of a heart attack after fighting with a neighbour over a hedge in Louth, Lincolnshire, last month. Mr Reed is believed to have been cutting bushes as a favour for a woman friend when her neighbour complained. A post-mortem examination showed that Mr Reed died from natural causes but there was a question over whether the heart attack had been brought on by the incident.
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Malcolm and Marlene Girling were jailed for 14 days last August when they breached an injunction forbidding them interfering with a dividing hedge. The dispute began when the Girlings cut down a 15ft hawthorn hedgein Witton, near Norwich.
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In 2001, Uri Reginald Bowen, 61, was ordered to be detained indefinitely under the Mental Health Act after shooting a neighbour dead in Talybont-on-Usk, Powys, after a row about a hedge.
