Tree Preservation Orders and Conservation Areas: Do You Need Council Permission?

The Short Answer

You need written council permission before pruning or felling a tree that is covered by a Tree Preservation Order (TPO), and you must give your council six weeks’ written notice before working on almost any tree over 75mm in diameter that stands in a Conservation Area. Both checks are free, take minutes on your local authority’s website, and carry unlimited fines in the Magistrates’ Court if you skip them.

What a Tree Preservation Order actually does

A Tree Preservation Order is a legal instrument made by a local planning authority under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It protects an individual tree, a group of trees, an area of trees or an entire woodland because the council considers them to bring public amenity value — usually because they are visible from a road, a footpath or neighbouring property and contribute to the character of the street.

The effect is simple and absolute: with a TPO in place it is an offence to cut down, top, lop, uproot, wilfully damage or wilfully destroy the tree without the council’s written consent. That covers far more than felling. Reducing a crown, thinning it, pollarding, cutting back a limb that overhangs your drive, and even severing significant roots during a patio or extension dig all fall inside the definition. So does damage caused by a contractor who did not check.

A TPO does not mean the tree can never be touched. It means the council decides. In our experience the majority of well-argued, proportionate applications on protected trees across Surrey and south London are approved, often with conditions attached about timing or the specification of the cuts. What gets refused is the request to remove a healthy, structurally sound tree purely because it drops leaves or casts shade.

How to check whether your tree is protected

Every local planning authority keeps a public register of Tree Preservation Orders, and most of the councils we work across — Croydon, Sutton, Merton, Kingston, Richmond, Bromley, Epsom and Ewell, Reigate and Banstead, Mole Valley and Guildford — publish it as a searchable online map. Enter your postcode, and protected trees appear as points, groups or shaded areas over the property boundaries.

Two words of caution about relying on the map alone. First, the mapping is a convenience, not the legal document; the definitive record is the TPO schedule and its plan, which the tree officer can email you. Second, an absent TPO does not mean the tree is unregulated — Conservation Area rules, planning conditions attached to a newer development, and restrictive covenants in your deeds can each apply independently.

If the map is ambiguous, or the tree sits close to a boundary and you cannot tell which side of the line it is on, email the council’s tree officer with the address and a photograph. A written answer from the officer costs nothing and is the single most useful piece of paper you can hold if a neighbour later queries the work.

• Search your council’s online TPO or planning constraints map by postcode.
• Check the Conservation Area layer on the same map — it is a separate designation.
• Request the TPO schedule and plan from the tree officer if the map is unclear.
• Check your deeds and any planning conditions from recent development on the plot.
• Keep the written confirmation with your quote and job paperwork.

Conservation Areas: the six-week notice rule

Conservation Areas cover large parts of the boroughs and towns we serve — Wimbledon Village, Richmond, Dulwich, Reigate’s old town, Dorking’s centre and the historic cores of Epsom, Guildford and Banstead among them. Inside one, trees receive automatic interim protection even where no TPO exists.

The rule is that you must serve a Section 211 notice on the council at least six weeks before starting work on any tree with a stem diameter above 75mm measured at 1.5m from the ground (or above 100mm where the work is thinning to help the growth of other trees). During those six weeks the council can do one of three things: reply that it has no objection, stay silent and let the period expire — at which point you may proceed — or make a TPO to protect the tree permanently.

The notice itself is short: your details, the address, a plan or photograph identifying the tree, the species, and a description of the work proposed. Councils generally accept it through the national Planning Portal or their own form. There is no fee. The single most common mistake we see is homeowners treating the six weeks as advisory and booking a contractor for the following week — the offence is committed the moment the saw touches the wood.

What happens if you get it wrong

Cutting down or wilfully destroying a protected tree is an either-way offence. Tried in the Magistrates’ Court it carries an unlimited fine, and the court is directed to have regard to any financial benefit that has accrued or is likely to accrue as a result of the offence — which is why fines involving trees removed to improve a view or clear a development plot can be substantial. Lesser damage, such as an unauthorised heavy reduction, is prosecuted separately with its own fine.

There is a second consequence that catches people out. Where a protected tree is removed, the landowner is placed under a statutory duty to plant a replacement tree of appropriate size and species in the same place, as soon as reasonably possible. That duty attaches to the land, so it passes to whoever buys the property next, and the council can enforce it years later.

Liability is not confined to the contractor. A homeowner who instructs work on a protected tree can be prosecuted alongside the firm that carried it out. This is precisely why we will not start work on any tree in a Conservation Area or with a TPO against it until the paperwork is in hand — it protects you as much as it protects us.

The exemptions — and how narrow they really are

The legislation exempts a handful of situations from the consent and notice requirements. The most relevant are work on a tree that is dead; removal of dead branches from a living tree; and work that is urgently necessary to remove an immediate risk of serious harm. Fruit trees cultivated for fruit production, and work required by statute or by a court order, are also treated separately.

These exemptions are far narrower than most people assume. “Dead” means dead, not declining, not half the canopy in poor condition. “Urgent” means the danger is immediate — a storm-damaged limb hanging over a pavement qualifies; a tree that has looked unstable for two years does not. Even where an exemption applies, you must give the council written notice as soon as practicable afterwards, with photographic evidence of the condition that justified it, and the replanting duty can still bite.

In genuine emergencies we photograph and document the defect before, during and after the work, then send that record to the council on the client’s behalf. If you are ever in doubt about whether a situation is urgent enough to proceed, the safest sequence is to make the site safe without removing more of the tree than is strictly necessary, then take advice the same day.

Nesting birds, bats and the seasonal restriction

Separate from planning law, the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 makes it an offence to intentionally damage or destroy the nest of a wild bird while it is in use or being built. The main nesting season in the South East runs from roughly March to August, and it applies to every tree and hedge regardless of whether a TPO or Conservation Area designation exists.

All UK bat species are protected under separate and stricter legislation, and mature trees with cavities, splits, loose bark or old woodpecker holes can be roosts. Where features like that are present on a tree scheduled for reduction or removal, a preliminary roost assessment is the right first step.

Practically, this means a qualified team checks the tree and hedge for active nests immediately before work begins, and stops if one is found. It is one of the reasons hedge cutting is best scheduled in autumn and winter, and why an outfit offering to cut a large boundary hedge in May without so much as a look is a warning sign.

How we handle protected trees

Every quote we issue starts with a check of the constraints on the tree, not the price of the job. If a TPO or Conservation Area designation applies, we tell you at the survey and set out what needs to be submitted, how long it will take and what the council is likely to accept.

We can prepare and submit the application or Section 211 notice for you, including the plan, the photographs and a specification written in the terms tree officers expect — a crown reduction described as “reduce lateral spread by up to 2m and height by up to 1.5m, retaining natural shape, to BS3998:2010” gets a far better reception than “cut it back hard”. Where a survey report is needed to support the case, we can produce one.

The timetable is the part worth planning around. Budget six weeks for a Conservation Area notice and around eight weeks for a full TPO application. If you have a build, a driveway or a house sale depending on the work, start the paperwork before you book anything else.

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