Hedge nightmare.....I kid you not!

[Ger-annie-um]

Sit back, this is a long tale of woe.
We were taking advantage of the gap in rain. Heard what sounded like a bomb going off. Ran to front of house to find a Ford Kuga embedded in our 10ft high leylandi hedge....oh and the 3ft wall in front was completely destroyed. No driver in the car so Police called and it was later established that crash was due to handbrake failure. Car hit the wall/hedge at 40mph. Leylandi hedge planted in 1984 now has the 1st tree in a 200ft + hedge split down the middle of the trunk and cannot be saved.
I want to cry every time I look at it😭
The tree surgeon has said he can't remove the stump as it is right next to telegraph pole with live lines so we should put in a raised bed and put a replacement ??? in that.
I desperately need ideas on what to plant in order to break up the not inconsiderable expanse of brown dead looking space.
Photinia red Robin has been suggested but that's quite a loose leaf plant. I wondered whether Yew would work?
We're both mid/late 70's and would like to see the entrance to our home look as good as it can.

Over to you, with apologies for the, not so short, story

[Bren In Pots]

I can’t offer any suggestions but I’m happy to hear no one was hurt in the incident.

[mothhawk]

Can you post a photo, so we can better see the situation. Does the utility pole carry telephone wires or elecricity? Is it on your property?

(That's a sympathy like, by the way)

[Ger-annie-um]

This photo doesn't really show the extent of the problem. You can see where the hole is and everything to the right has to be taken out. The pole carries electrical and telephone wires

[Nicos]

In our previous house we had a beech hedge in our front garden.
Easy to clip, lovely and green in the spring/ summer changing to orange/ brown in the winter. Also very popular with nesting birds
I would highly recommend beech.

[Containergardener]

We've loads of beech , great if you want beech leaves/leaf mould.
If you want evergreen then yew would work as you can shape it too, Red Robin would give you the flashes of red and stays green.
Have a look here, I noticed Oleander and Privet too.

[Nicos]

There seem to be a lot of mixed shrub hedges around here which look really lovely.

I’m guessing 1/3 evergreen to 2/3 deciduous seems the ‘norm’ ( depends how much of a solid look you want) ,but mixing different coloured leaves, stems, flowers, leaf shapes….
One every metre apart from what I recall.
I was thinking of making one in our back garden but never got around to doing it.

[Plot70]

Firethorn is like evergreen hawthorn with a choice of berry colour yellow through to red.