Devastating the Lonicera

I've been doing what one of my mates from the council used to call renewal pruning on the morass of Lonicera nitida we have at the bottom of the garden. Since the nice man from the council decided to give us the hedge, with all the field maple, hawthorne, elder, etc in it there is no risk of some muppet from highways coming along with a flail mower and trimming it back to the point where we have no cover. So I can drastically reduce the lonicera and let the hedge do more of the work - possibly removing some of it and planting another row of native hedging in it's place.