Checklist for a hedgerow removal notice

A hedgerow removal notice checklist starts with a question that saves most people the trouble: do the Hedgerows Regulations 1997 apply to this hedge at all? They cover hedgerows of 20 metres or more in length, and shorter ones that meet another hedgerow at each end, where the hedge grows on or next to common land, protected land, or land used for agriculture, forestry or the keeping of horses, ponies or donkeys. A hedge inside a garden, or marking the boundary of a dwelling's curtilage, is outside the Regulations entirely.

If the Regulations do apply, you give the local planning authority a hedgerow removal notice, and the authority has 42 days to decide whether the hedgerow is important. That decision turns on criteria in the Regulations, not on planning policy, which is why a hedge in open countryside can be protected while one on an allocated site is not.

When a notice is required and when it is not

Four conditions have to be met before a notice is needed. The hedgerow is 20 metres or longer, or shorter and connected at both ends to another hedgerow. It grows on or adjacent to qualifying land. It is not within or marking the boundary of the curtilage of a dwelling house. And the work amounts to removal rather than management.

That last point matters. Coppicing, laying and ordinary trimming are management, not removal, and the Regulations do not catch them. Grubbing out a length of hedge, or cutting it so severely that it will not regrow, is removal.

If you hold a planning permission and removing the hedgerow is required to carry out that permitted development, no notice is needed. The exemption exists because the planning application was the moment to consider the hedge. That is also the trap: if the permission did not identify the hedge removal, the exemption may not cover you, and an officer looking at a cleared boundary two years later will ask which drawing showed it going.

Check the Regulations themselves rather than a summary, because the definitions are precise and a hedge that looks obviously agricultural can fall outside them.

Important hedgerow criteria and how they are tested

A hedgerow is important only if it has existed for 30 years or more and satisfies at least one of the criteria set out in the Regulations. Both limbs are required. A species-rich hedge planted fifteen years ago is not important for these purposes.

The 30-year test is evidential. Historic Ordnance Survey mapping, tithe maps, estate plans, aerial photography and the county Historic Environment Record are the usual sources, and the authority will often have the same material. Where the hedge appears on a first edition six-inch map it is comfortably over 30 years old.

The criteria divide into two groups. Archaeology and history criteria look at whether the hedge marks a pre-1850 parish or township boundary, incorporates a scheduled monument or archaeological feature, marks the boundary of an estate or manor documented before 1600, or forms an integral part of a field system predating the Enclosure Acts. The wildlife group looks at protected species, woody species counts and the hedge's relationship with a public right of way.

Archaeological, historical and wildlife criteria

The species count criterion is the one most hedges are tested against, and it is mechanical. The count is taken in 30-metre sample lengths as specified in the Regulations, and it combines a number of woody species with a number of associated features.

The structure of the test, in outline:

• seven or more woody species in the sample length
• or six woody species together with three associated features
• or six woody species including one of the named rarer trees
• or five woody species together with four associated features

Associated features include a bank or wall supporting the hedge, few gaps, standard trees at intervals, a parallel hedge nearby, connections to other hedges or woodland, and a ditch or woodland-floor plants alongside. Read the schedule for the exact list, because surveyors and authorities do.

The protected species criterion brings in the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 schedules and bird species of conservation concern recorded in the hedge. A hedge supporting nesting birds in the breeding season is also protected independently of the Regulations, since section 1 of the 1981 Act makes it an offence to damage or destroy a nest in use, and that applies between roughly March and August whether or not a notice has been served.

Survey evidence to submit with the notice

The notice itself is short, but a notice with no evidence invites a retention notice by default, because an authority with nothing in front of it will protect the hedge rather than risk being wrong.

Submit:

1. A plan at a suitable scale showing the hedgerow to be removed, marked clearly, with the length stated in metres.
2. The land ownership position and your interest in the land.
3. The reason for removal, stated plainly.
4. A botanical survey recording woody species per 30-metre sample length, with the dates of survey.
5. Historic map evidence addressing the 30-year test, where you are arguing the hedge is not important.
6. Photographs along the length, with the positions marked on the plan.

Time the botanical survey properly. Woody species identification needs leaf, so a survey carried out in February will miss species and may understate the count, which cuts against you if you are relying on a low count. A survey from April to September is what an authority will expect.

Where trees stand in the hedge line, record them too. A standard tree in a hedge may be covered by a Tree Preservation Order or sit within a conservation area, and the hedgerow notice does not authorise its removal. Working out canopy and tree cover across a site uses the same survey data and is worth doing at the same time.

The authority's determination period

The authority has 42 days from receiving a valid notice. Three outcomes are possible.

The silence outcome is real and useful, but do not rely on an informal assurance that the authority is not interested. Keep proof of the date the notice was received, because the 42 days run from receipt and the burden of showing the period has expired falls on you.

If you remove the hedge before the period expires, you commit an offence even if the authority would have consented.

Retention notices and their effect

A retention notice prohibits removal. It is not time limited and it does not expire, so a hedge subject to one stays protected unless the notice is withdrawn or overturned on appeal.

An appeal lies to the Secretary of State within the period stated in the notice, and it is determined on whether the hedgerow meets the criteria rather than on the merits of your proposal. That is a narrow argument and it is won on survey evidence and historic mapping, not on the benefits of the development.

Where a retention notice frustrates a scheme, the alternative route is a planning application that expressly includes the hedgerow removal, because development permitted by a planning permission is exempt from the notice procedure. The authority will then consider the hedge as part of the planning balance, which may produce a better answer or a worse one, but at least it is a judgement rather than a criteria test. A Planning Statement that addresses hedgerow loss, replacement planting and biodiversity net gain directly is the right vehicle for that.

Exemptions and their narrow scope

The exemptions in the Regulations are specific and short. They cover making a new opening in substitution for an existing one that will be filled within a set period, emergency access, works required under other legislation, flood defence and highway works, preventing the spread of plant or tree disease, works by statutory undertakers, national defence, proper management of the hedgerow, and removal required to carry out development for which planning permission has been granted.

Read them literally. "Proper management" does not cover grubbing out, and "a new opening in substitution for an existing opening" means the old gap gets closed, which is a positive obligation rather than a formality. Relying on an exemption that does not quite fit is how prosecutions start.

Illustrative example: a farm wants to merge two fields by removing 180 metres of boundary hedge. The hedge appears on 19th century mapping, so the 30-year test is met, and a May survey records six woody species with a supporting bank and few gaps. On that evidence the hedge is likely to be important, and the realistic options are to retain it with a new gated access, or to bring the removal forward as part of a planning application with compensatory planting, rather than to serve a notice and hope.

Penalties and replacement planting

Removing an important hedgerow without consent is an offence, and on conviction the fine is unlimited. The authority can also require replacement planting, so the practical outcome of getting this wrong is a fine plus the cost of reinstating the hedge and maintaining it until established.

Two other regimes sit alongside the 1997 Regulations and are often confused with them. The Management of Hedgerows (England) Regulations 2024 set a cutting ban between 1 March and 31 August and buffer strip requirements on agricultural land, enforced separately from the planning system. And the statutory biodiversity metric treats hedgerows as their own category, so hedgerow loss has to be compensated with hedgerow units rather than with grassland, which usually means planting more metres than you removed.

Plan the replacement before the removal. A hedge planted in the first available season, with a maintenance commitment, turns a difficult notice into a manageable one.

Browse the 66 PlanScope report types to see which supporting documents a rural scheme involving boundary change is likely to need, or enter your postcode to check the designations on your land.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the Hedgerows Regulations 1997 and the position with your local planning authority or a qualified ecologist before removing any hedgerow. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.