INSECT-FILLED trees are stopping a mother from enjoying her garden with her baby.

The 30ft leylandii trees on the other side of her garden fence and are filled with wasp and hornet nests and the insects swarm around the garden.

Laura Pethick says if the trees were anywhere else, the council would have ordered them to be cut back.

The problem is Colchester Council owns the trees and they are on council land.

Mrs Pethick, 29, of Mersea Road, Colchester, says the council refuses to do anything about the problem.

The mum said: “If they were on my side, I would be told to chop them down.

“You would expect better from the council because they are the ones who set these rules.”

The 2003 Anti-social Behaviour Act gave local authorities the power to order people to cut down hedges if they stopped people’s reasonable enjoyment of their home or garden.

Mrs Pethick and her partner Aaron Rout have been arguing with the council about the trees since they moved into their private house a year ago and her parents – who lived there before they did – were having the same row for nine years.

She said: “It is really upsetting. I just want my son Breccan out playing in the garden.

“I have to keep him on the concrete by the house or in the house because of the wasps and the hornets.”

Colchester Council said the first complaint it had received was last year.

An inspection had revealed no work was needed and it would not be looked at again until 2017.

A spokesman added: “The trees in question are along the southern boundary of the property’s rear garden.

“The garden is about 70m long and the trees are about 40m away from the property.”