Checking whether a Tree Preservation Order applies

To check a Tree Preservation Order, ask the local planning authority's tree officer for a search of the register, which the authority must keep available for public inspection. Most councils now publish a constraints map layer, and the national planning data service carries tree preservation datasets for many authorities, but neither is authoritative. The register is. A map layer can show a point where the order covers a group, or a polygon where the order actually protects only the trees that stood there in 1978.

Two further controls catch trees with no order at all. Any tree in a conservation area above a threshold size is protected by a notice requirement, and felling more than a small volume of timber needs a felling licence. A search that only asks about orders misses both.

Who holds the register and how to search it

Write to the tree officer with the address, a site plan with a red line, and a request for confirmation of any Tree Preservation Order affecting the site or trees within falling distance of it. Ask for a copy of the order itself and the schedule rather than a bare yes or no.

Three things to ask for in the same email, because they arrive from the same person and save a second round.

• The order number, the date it was made and the date it was confirmed.
• The schedule and the plan, so you can see which trees are individually numbered and which are covered by a group, area or woodland classification.
• Whether the site is in a conservation area, and whether any tree works consents or notices have been determined in the last five years.

Where a solicitor's search has come back clear, treat it as a starting point. Local searches pick up orders recorded against the property, and an order made over a neighbouring garden, protecting a tree whose canopy overhangs your plot, may not show.

The four classifications, and why they are not equivalent

The distinction between area and woodland is the one that changes advice. An area classification is a snapshot. It protects the trees that were there on the day the order was made and no others, which means a mature oak planted as a sapling in 1990 under a 1975 area order is not protected. Proving what stood there in 1975 is another matter, and the burden in practice falls on whoever wants to fell.

Woodland classifications work the other way. They protect the woodland as a unit, including natural regeneration and replacement planting, because the intention is to keep the woodland in existence rather than to preserve individual stems.

Government guidance encourages authorities to review area classifications and replace them with individual, group or woodland entries, so an old area order may have been superseded. Check the current order rather than a note in a previous purchase file. Designations of every kind move, and the note on planning constraints that lapse, expire or are revoked sets out how to confirm a position rather than assume it.

Conservation areas as a separate control

Trees in a conservation area that are not already covered by an order are protected by section 211 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. Six weeks' written notice must be given to the authority before carrying out works, which gives the authority the chance to make an order in the meantime.

The threshold is size, not species or age. A tree with a stem diameter above 75 mm measured at 1.5 metres above ground is caught, with a slightly larger threshold where thinning is being done to help the growth of other trees. Multi-stemmed trees are measured across the stems, which brings in a good deal of garden planting people assume is exempt.

If the authority does nothing within the six weeks, the works may proceed, and that permission lasts for two years. If the authority makes an order, you are into the consent regime instead. Where the tree also sits within the curtilage of a listed building, the heritage consents run alongside, and what the listing actually captures is covered in the note on listed building curtilage.

Exemptions, and how narrow they are

The exemptions are real but they are read strictly, and getting one wrong is a criminal matter rather than a planning one.

1. Dead trees. Works may proceed, but five days' written notice to the authority is required beforehand except in an emergency, and there is a duty to plant a replacement.
2. Trees presenting an immediate risk of serious harm, where the minimum necessary work may be done and notice given as soon as practicable afterwards.
3. Works required by an Act of Parliament, or by a statutory undertaker in specified circumstances.
4. Fruit trees cultivated for fruit production, in the course of that cultivation.
5. Works needed to implement a full planning permission, where the permission necessarily entails the removal.

Take photographs and a written arboricultural opinion before doing anything under the dead or dangerous exemptions. The authority will ask for evidence after the event, and a contractor's verbal assurance carries no weight. Where a tree is suspected to be in decline rather than dead, apply for consent rather than relying on the exemption.

Note that a tree being inconvenient, dropping leaves, blocking light or lifting a patio is not an exemption. Those are grounds for a consent application, and they succeed sometimes.

Applying for consent and appealing a refusal

Consent for works to a protected tree is applied for on the standard tree works form, free of charge, with a plan identifying the trees and a specification written in proper arboricultural terms. Write the specification to British Standard pruning terminology rather than as crown reduction by a third, because a vague specification gets a vague or refused answer.

The authority has eight weeks to decide. A refusal, or a consent with conditions you cannot accept, can be appealed to the Planning Inspectorate within 28 days of the decision. Appeals on tree works are decided on written representations in most cases and they are not hostile proceedings, so a well-evidenced case from an arboriculturist has a fair prospect.

Where the works form part of a development proposal, do not deal with the trees separately. A survey to the relevant British Standard, root protection areas plotted on the layout and an impact assessment give the authority a coherent picture, which is the purpose of the tree survey and arboricultural impact assessment. Councils usually expect a suitably qualified author for that work, and professional review is strongly advised.

Penalties and the felling licence overlap

Cutting down, uprooting, topping, lopping, wilfully damaging or wilfully destroying a protected tree without consent is an offence under section 210 of the 1990 Act. Destroying a protected tree carries an unlimited fine in the magistrates' court, and lesser contraventions carry a lower maximum. Liability extends to the person who does the work and to the person who causes or permits it, so instructing a contractor is not a defence.

There is also a duty to replace a protected tree that has been removed, whether lawfully under an exemption or unlawfully, and the authority can enforce it by notice. A replanting notice attaches to the land, which means it passes to a purchaser.

Separately, a felling licence from the Forestry Commission is needed to fell more than a small volume of growing trees in any calendar quarter, with a tighter limit on volume sold. That regime applies outside gardens and it applies whether or not there is an order, so a woodland clearance on a development site needs both checks. To see which supporting documents a scheme with protected trees is likely to need, browse the report types on PlanScope.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.