THREE trips a year to Lanzarote to catch the sun could soon be in the past for a man who has won a four-year battle to reduce the size of his neighbour’s towering hedge.

Action is being taken against the owner of the double row of Leyland Cypress and by mid-summer lorry driver Derek Friend's dark and damp back garden in Foster Way, Deal, should see the light of day.

Mr Friend said: "It has been a long fight and an absolute nightmare living with these trees. All I want is a quiet and happy life.

"Now I intend to pay the £340 council bill again for my neighbour to have trees overlooking her house taken down, so her young children can play in the sunshine."

The complaint about the nine-metre high hedge, in the back garden of a house at Church Lane, was made after Mr Friend unsuccessfully asked the owners to reduce the height.

He added: "One of the hedges blew down just missing my car on the driveway and once a month I have to clean my gutters, where the dead bits end up."

The brown scale-like leaves also fall on the lawn stopping grass growing.

Mr Friend owns D. and S.Transport and after a long haul he would like to relax in garden, but finds that the shadows from the hedge always keep the outside of his house chilly and shady.

"Even in the summer it’s cold on a sunny day, so I go to Lanzarote three times a year."

He said he had tried to reason with the neighbour and heard about new legislation to help people in his predicament, so contacted the district council.

He praised the officers for their help and said he had been determined to take his problem to the highest court in the land if necessary.

The daughter of the owner of the Church Lane house wrote to the council to say she had recently been widowed and was "horrified" to receive a letter referring to the Anti-Social Behaviour Act.

She said the hedge was planted in 1962 and formed a "woodland area" and habitat for squirrels and birds.