NEIGHBOURS of a Highworth school are complaining their homes have been plunged into darkness by an overgrown hedge.

Residents of Rivers Way, whose homes look out over the Westrop Primary School playing field, are appealing for the hedge and close by trees to be cut back.

Alan Coles complained: “I never see the sun in my front room or bedroom. I might as well be in a crypt, that’s how dark it is.”

He believes the hedge is over four metres tall when it should be just over half the height.

He had been in touch with the school, but it appeared nothing was happening. He had also called in Swindon Borough Council to look at the hedge, but because it was not on public land it was not the authority’s responsibility.

“I have been trying to get it done for the past three months,” said the 65-year-old. Birds had stopped nesting so there was no longer any seasonal restriction on cutting.

“One lady up the road had to have her TV aerial moved. The trees are so dense with foliage she hasn’t got a signal. It has started to interfere with the picture on my TV.”

He said: “I don’t get any sunlight into the front of the house. When the sun goes up over the top and starts to go down in the west, then I get some light.”

“There are quite a few of us complaining,” he said.

“One of my neighbours’ front rooms is even worse. The bushes are just getting so thick and blocking the light out.”

He was also concerned about children being caught on the long brambles sticking out of the hedge as they made their way to and from school.

Headteacher Janet Urban said: “The school does its best within its very limited budget to make sure that the hedge is trimmed twice a year and that we are meeting all our legal requirements.”

But she said it was considering a proposal to replace the hedge but that was expensive and was something for the next few years.

“The school is looking at the possibility of removing the hedges, but obviously that is a huge capital issue for us in terms of replacing it with a fence,” she said.

“We have responded to residents when they have come in, we have explained the situation that we are in.”

The school was obliged to obtain three quotes before going ahead with the hedge cutting and it was in the process of doing that.

Officials from Swindon Borough Council’s environmental team had also been out and declared the hedge was not a problem. She added that brambles emerging from the hedge did not go as far as the footpath.