IF YOU have received a letter from the council’s Highways Department telling you to cut your “overgrown vegetation” (in my case, a slightly fat hedge) “as soon as possible”, can I just point out you could easily be breaking the law under Section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act – where it is an offence to damage or destroy the nest of any bird while in use or being built.

The RSPB says you should leave hedges untouched from March to August, as this is peak nesting time.

I rang the council and they said they didn’t mean what they said in the letter.

Instead of “cut vegetation to the boundary line as soon as possible”, what they meant was “check for nests and call us before you do any cutting and we will advise you to leave it if you have seen any nests in there”.

How many nests have been wrecked by the council’s own highways teams... surely they wouldn’t have instructed them to go out and trim hedges until August, would they?

Or do we think all the workmen will have checked each inch of hedgerow for baby birds before diving in with trimmers?

Vicki Hill, St Stephen’s Road, Acomb, York.