Hedgerow assessments under the Hedgerows Regulations 1997

Before you remove a farm hedge you have to serve a hedgerow removal notice on the local planning authority and wait. The Hedgerows Regulations 1997 give the authority 42 days to decide whether the hedgerow is important, and removing an important hedgerow without permission is a criminal offence with an unlimited fine and a power for the court to order replanting. The assessment that decides the question needs two different kinds of competence, and most notices are served with only one of them.

The archaeological and historical criteria need someone who can read a tithe map. The wildlife criteria need someone who can identify woody species in a hedge. Those are rarely the same person.

When a hedgerow removal notice is required

The Regulations apply to a hedgerow that is 20 metres or more long, or shorter than 20 metres but meeting another hedgerow at each end, growing in or next to land used for agriculture, forestry or the keeping of horses, ponies or donkeys, or on common land or protected land.

They do not apply to a hedgerow within the curtilage of a dwelling house or marking its boundary. That exclusion is why a garden hedge can be taken out without a notice while an identical hedge 50 metres away in a field cannot.

Certain works are exempt from the notice requirement, including making a new opening in substitution for an existing one that is then filled, obtaining temporary access in an emergency, works for which planning permission has been granted, certain flood defence and drainage works, and works to prevent the spread of plant or tree disease. Proper management such as coppicing and laying is not removal at all.

Gapping up, trimming and laying therefore sit outside the notice regime, but they do not sit outside everything else. The Management of Hedgerows (England) Regulations 2024 introduced controls on agricultural land covering a buffer strip and a cutting ban through the bird nesting season, and the offence of damaging a nest in use under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 applies whatever the hedge's status.

The important hedgerow criteria and who applies them

A hedgerow is important only if it has existed for at least 30 years and meets at least one of the criteria set out in the Regulations. Those criteria split into two groups.

The archaeology and history group covers a hedgerow that marks the boundary of a pre-1850 parish or township, incorporates an archaeological feature, sits wholly or partly within a recorded archaeological site, or marks the boundary of an estate or manor documented before 1600 or forms an integral part of a field system predating the mid-nineteenth century.

The wildlife and landscape group turns on woody species counts averaged over 30 metre lengths, the presence of certain protected or notable species, and associated features such as a bank, ditch, wall, tree line or parallel hedge, particularly where the hedgerow runs alongside a public right of way.

Three points that catch people out. The counts are averages over defined lengths, so a species-rich 30 metres at one end can make the whole stretch important. The species thresholds differ by part of the country. And the 30 year age test is about the hedgerow's existence, not the age of the individual stems, so a laid and relaid hedge is still an old hedgerow.

Archaeological and historical criteria against wildlife criteria

These are different exercises and need to be reported separately.

The historical assessment is desk-based first. It draws on the Historic Environment Record held by the county archaeologist, tithe and enclosure maps, estate plans, the first edition Ordnance Survey, and any published parish boundary work. Map regression across four or five dated sources is the method, and the output is a statement about when the boundary first appears and what it relates to. An Archaeological Desk-Based Assessment is the natural vehicle where the hedgerow sits within a wider site.

The ecological assessment is field-based. It records woody species in 30 metre sections along the whole length, ground flora, structural features, and any evidence of protected species using the hedge as a commuting route or nesting habitat. A Preliminary Ecological Appraisal usually covers the hedge as one of several features, but the hedgerow assessment needs its own section with the species counts set out section by section so the authority can check them.

Neither assessment is a substitute for the other. A notice supported only by an ecological walkover leaves the authority to do its own historical work, and the answer it reaches will not be the one you wanted.

Survey timing and species recording

Timing decides accuracy. Woody species can be identified from twigs and buds in winter by someone experienced, but the identification is slower and less certain, and ground flora is invisible.

The practical windows:

Record the survey method in the report: the section lengths used, how the average was calculated, the surveyor's name and qualifications, and the date. An authority that cannot reproduce your species count will substitute its own.

The authority's 42 days and what follows

Serve the notice in the prescribed form with a plan showing the hedgerow and the length to be removed, evidence of ownership, and the reason for removal. Incomplete notices are the most common cause of delay, because the clock does not start until the notice is valid.

Three outcomes follow.

1. The authority gives written notice that removal may proceed. You may then remove the hedgerow, within the time limit the Regulations set.
2. The authority serves a hedgerow retention notice. Removal is then prohibited.
3. The authority does nothing within the 42 days. Removal may proceed once the period expires.

Do not rely on silence without checking the date carefully, and keep the proof of service. The consequences of getting the start date wrong fall on the person who operated the machine.

Retention notices and the consequence of removal

Where a retention notice is served, the hedgerow stays. The options then are to reapply with better information, to negotiate a different alignment or a partial removal, or to take legal advice about challenging the notice. Remedies under the Regulations are limited, so check the current position before assuming an appeal route exists.

Removing an important hedgerow without permission is an offence carrying an unlimited fine, and the court can require a replacement hedgerow to be planted. Enforcement is not common, but it does happen, and the evidence is permanent: aerial imagery from before and after the works, dated and publicly available.

Separately, removal has consequences under the biodiversity net gain regime. The statutory metric treats hedgerows as their own class of unit with their own gain requirement, so a hedge taken out for an access has to be replaced in hedgerow units and not simply offset with grassland. The metric should be completed by a competent person under the Environment Act 2021 regime, and a Biodiversity Net Gain Assessment sets out how those units are accounted for.

Who should carry out the assessment

For a short length of hedge in an obviously modern field boundary, a single competent ecologist reporting against all the criteria may be enough, with a record search to confirm the historical position.

For anything on an old boundary, alongside a right of way, or on a site where the hedge is the reason an application is contentious, commission both disciplines. An ecologist with the relevant professional membership for the species work, and an archaeologist or historic landscape specialist for the map regression, each signing their own section. It costs more than one walkover and far less than a retention notice on a hedge you needed to remove. The broader question of what competence means where a regulation uses the word is covered in what competent person means in planning legislation.

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, and for ecological and archaeological assessment qualified professional input may be required.

If you need a suitably qualified reviewer to check a hedgerow assessment before it is served, the professional directory is the route.