AN OVERGROWN hedge has already caused at least two casualties – and now this pensioner fears it might even cost a life.

Irene Fisher, of Earswick, in York, said she was taking her life into her hands every time she got off the number five bus in Strensall Road, opposite Willow Grove.

The 73-year-old said her walk home along Strensall Road was made extremely perilous due to an overgrown bush, that pushed her off the pavement into the path of oncoming cars and lorries.

Mrs Fisher, who is partially-sighted and walks with a white stick, said she had already been scratched right across her face by overhanging branches that she had not seen.

She said another friend in the village had been left with severe bruising to her arm after being knocked by the wing mirror of a passing lorry.

“There is going to be a serious accident there soon,” she said.

“Cars and lorries come pretty quickly down that road, and if I fall off the pavement because of the bush, then I will get run over and that will be it.”

Mrs Fisher, who uses the bus to get to York Hospital for appointments, said she first contacted City of York Council five weeks ago to register her complaint.

She said: “I’ve have been in touch with the council three times, and each time they say it will be cut back, but still nothing has happened.

“It’s a health-and-safety hazard. Once a branch went right across my face and scratched it all the way down.

“I’ve just been speaking to another lady in the village and she said she had been hit by one of the wing mirrors of a lorry.

“She was really shaken up by it and it had left her with a bad bruise on her arm. It is really dangerous.”

A spokeswoman for City of York Council said: “The council is currently in a legal dispute regarding the ownership of this hedge.

“However, measures have already been put in place to have the hedge trimmed back due to public safety concerns as a matter of urgency. This is being done today.”