It is probably safe to assume that David Alvand likes his privacy. Firstly the civil engineer spent 12 years fighting a court battle over a 3.6-metre (12ft) concrete wall which he erected without planning permission around his back garden.

It was finally dismantled just before the case reached the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

Now it is the front of Alvand's suburban semi-detached house in Plymouth, Devon, which has agitated the neighbours.

They have launched a formal complaint under antisocial behaviour legislation to force him to cut back the vast leyland cypress trees completely filling the front garden.

Planted in 1991, shortly after the 66-year-old moved into the area, the famously fast-growing trees – better known as leylandii and the source of countless previous neighbourly disputes, some turning violent – are now more than 10 metres tall.

As well as completely obscuring the front of Alvand's home, their higher branches overhang his neighbours' roofs, as well as the pavement.

One neighbour said: "That wall took years to sort out. It's been a nightmare. Now the trees are an eyesore – they block out sunlight and make the street look bad."

Alvand, however, said he was being unfairly targeted: "I have been chased for two decades over the state of my gardens. I feel victimised. The neighbours are complaining because they have a vendetta against me. I am a law abiding citizen and I have suffered for 20 years being chased over my wall and trees. It's my land."

Alvand was almost jailed in 2003 for refusing to remove the concrete breeze block barrier, known among neighbours as "the Berlin Wall" and built despite the council refusing planning permission. He claimed the structure, topped with corrugated iron, was in fact a greenhouse and thus did not need consent.

After three appeals, a public meeting, a hearing at a magistrates court, two at the high court and one before the appeal court in London, and shortly before the case reached the ECHR, Plymouth council was granted the right for Alvand to be jailed while it removed the wall. Alvand, who had cost the council £20,000 in legal fees, then backed down.

The council says it is investigating the leylandii but hopes the case can be solved through mediation.