After months of unsuccessfully trying to stop his own MP Jeremy Corbyn winning the Labour leadership contest, former party leader Neil Kinnock is finally seeing the light.

In his own back garden that is, because Baron Kinnock PC, of Huddleston Road, Tufnell Park, has applied for planning permission to chop back some of the trees in four of his neighbours’ backyards.


The applications, made under his full name with his title – Lord – last month, had the Tribune for a moment thinking the former MP for Bedwellty, later Islwyn, had built up a small property empire not declared under the House of Lords register of interests.

However, it transpires Lord Kinnock and wife Glenys’s garden gets very dark when the trees in neighbouring gardens get too high.

The applications are for cutting back an ash in one neighbour’s garden, followed by a lime tree in another, the removal of a climber vine, and two sycamores and an ash in another.

In a fourth neighbour’s garden, Lord Kinnock is expected to commission a group of tree surgeons to cut back seven lime trees, a sycamore, a mulberry and an acacia.

When contacted by the Tribune, Lord Kinnock said the applications were made “in full and ready” agreement with neighbours – and he revealed his “postage stamp” garden is so small it does not contain a single tree.

Residents in the area need to apply for planning permission to be able to cut back the trees because they are protected and can only do so up to a certain point.

• Keywords
  TREES, PLANNING APPLICATIONS
• Geographical keyword
  HUDDLESTONE ROAD
• Persons keyword
  Neil Kinnock, Lord