A man who lives in Sedgley has found for the second time a giant branch has fallen from a tree, that is on a footpath at the bottom of his garden. The first time it crushed his greenhouse, this time it very nearly hit him. According to the council the land is owned by The Earl of Dudley.
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00:00 Edward, hello sir, how are you doing?
00:03 How are you sir?
00:05 Right, thank you.
00:06 And how long have you lived here then Edward, in terms for you?
00:08 About 38 years now.
00:10 38 years, and this is not the result of your tree surgery?
00:14 No, no, no.
00:16 But the result of the weather on this whopper of a birch tree behind you.
00:21 Just fill us in on what's going on chap, this isn't the first time a branch off...
00:25 No, we've had the council down here, right, and they're saying to us
00:29 all the trees in that lane, they belong to the...
00:33 Erle Dudley?
00:34 Erle Dudley, yeah.
00:36 It's still a public walk away, so it's your responsibility to keep it clean,
00:41 tidy and safe.
00:42 Well that's it, there's a path there isn't there, so people can stroll around.
00:45 Yeah, I'll show you that.
00:46 And you've had your greenhouse there, if we just turn around a bit,
00:49 your greenhouse in the corner.
00:50 I've flattened it.
00:51 Yeah, you've had a branch come down and took it out didn't it?
00:54 Yeah, flattened it.
00:55 Look at it, I was in hospital at the time, or I would have been dead.
00:58 I'd have been working in there.
00:59 Well this branch kind of fell in the border just behind you, didn't you?
01:03 No, it fell there, look.
01:04 That's it, and didn't you say you were working there the day before?
01:09 Hang on, shall we have a look?
01:10 Let's have a look.
01:11 I was working here, look, right.
01:12 Yeah.
01:13 I've been spraying all the pavement, and I was working roughly about here, right.
01:18 And I hear something go, because I'm a bit deaf you see,
01:21 I hear something go, "Wahhh!"
01:23 Yeah.
01:24 And I went like that, and I saw this thing, you know,
01:28 one end was stuck in here, look, like that.
01:30 Yeah.
01:31 One end was stuck in there, one end stuck in the ground.
01:33 Yeah.
01:34 No way, and you were working on this bit before, weren't you?
01:37 Yeah, I was, I was been cleaning all the weeds out, you see, the day before.
01:42 So, I mean, it must, you know, it must concern you,
01:46 if there's a bit of wind or some, even just any time,
01:49 does it make you a little bit wary about where you're sitting in your garden and using it?
01:53 See, I mean, we're told by the council, they ought to get that lot there,
01:56 just, you know, clip it off of it.
01:58 Yeah.
01:59 But they keep saying, "No, it don't belong to us, it's somebody else's."
02:02 But it's like, it's your public right of way, not mine.
02:05 Yeah.
02:06 My government, my, my, probably started, finished it there.
02:08 Yeah.
02:09 So, does it, does it make you, like, wary about sitting in here, you know what I mean?
02:13 Do you kind of, yeah.
02:14 It does, I mean, see that thing falling down on top of you.
02:16 Well, that would have killed you, wouldn't it, do you know what I mean?
02:18 That would have killed me as well, twice now it's happened to me now.
02:20 Yeah.
02:21 So, yeah, you'd like to see, in an ideal world, if we had a magic wand,
02:25 you're not asking for the whole tree to come down, but like, take it, you know.
02:28 No, no, just prune the top off, you know, and that.
02:30 Yeah.
02:31 And when we sit back down, it's a lovely tree, don't get me wrong, it's a beautiful tree,
02:34 but it just wants to always, you know, some of those branches up there are probably rotten now,
02:38 and you can't get them rid of.
02:40 So.
02:41 It'll probably fall on somebody's head and kill somebody.
02:42 So, according to the council, it's the early Dudley's lands,
02:45 so where do you start from there then?
02:47 I've no clue.
02:48 Well, exactly.
02:49 Exactly.
02:50 Well, we'll leave you to, erm, gardening peace, hopefully, without branches falling down.
02:56 See, the only thing I'd suggest, you get the council to actually close the line,
02:59 in case there's an accident in there, and without falling on somebody's kidney, to kill them.
03:04 Yeah, yeah.
03:05 That's what's happening now.
03:07 Yeah.
03:08 That's how you put it in your newspaper, you know, say, you know, it wants something doing.
03:10 Yeah.
03:11 To stop people walking down the line, or actually pruning the tree.
03:14 - Right.