Hedgerow removal notices and the evidence they require

A hedgerow removal notice costs nothing to submit and can stop a scheme for six weeks. Under the Hedgerows Regulations 1997 you must give the local planning authority notice of your intention to remove a hedgerow that the Regulations cover, and the authority has 42 days to decide whether it is important. If it is, you get a hedgerow retention notice and the hedge stays.

The money goes on the survey that proves whether the hedge meets the criteria. Done badly, that survey is the reason a retention notice lands.

When a removal notice is required

The Regulations do not cover every hedge. They apply to a hedgerow of 20 metres or more in length, or one shorter than that which meets another hedgerow at each end, growing on or adjacent to common land, protected land, or land used for agriculture, forestry or the breeding or keeping of horses, ponies or donkeys.

Hedgerows within or marking a boundary of the curtilage of a dwelling house are outside the Regulations altogether. That is the exclusion householders rely on and rural owners misread, because a hedge along a field boundary that happens to run past a farmhouse garden is not automatically garden hedge.

Some operations do not need a notice. Proper management such as trimming and laying, removal for an approved planning permission where the hedgerow was identified, removal to gain access in an emergency, and work needed to comply with a statutory duty all sit outside the notice requirement. Removing a hedge because it is in the way of a scheme you intend to apply for later does not.

The important hedgerow criteria and how they are tested

A hedgerow is important if it has existed for 30 years or more and satisfies at least one of the criteria in Part 2 of Schedule 1 to the Regulations.

Those criteria split into two families. The archaeology and history group covers hedgerows that mark the boundary of a parish or township existing before 1850, that incorporate an archaeological feature, that are wholly or partly within an archaeological site, that mark the boundary of a pre-1850 estate or manor, or that form part of a field system pre-dating the Enclosure Acts or are an integral part of such a system.

The wildlife and landscape group counts woody species over sample lengths and combines those counts with associated features. Woody species are counted in 30 metre sample lengths and averaged, and the thresholds reduce as the number of associated features rises. Associated features include a bank or wall supporting the hedge, less than 10 per cent gaps, standard trees at intervals, a parallel hedge within a stated distance, a ditch, and connections to other hedges, woodland or ponds. Separate criteria cover the presence of species protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 and specified categories of birds.

Two practical consequences. The woody species count has to be done properly, in leaf, by someone who can tell field maple from hawthorn in a mixed hedge. And the historic criteria need map research, not a walkover: tithe maps, enclosure awards, first edition Ordnance Survey and the county historic environment record.

No fee, but a survey that has to be done properly

The notice carries no charge. The evidence does.

Budget for three things. A botanical survey in the growing season, with the sample lengths recorded on a plan, each species listed and the associated features measured rather than estimated. A historic map search, which for a long boundary can take a day of a consultant's time and a Historic Environment Record enquiry fee. And a protected species check, because a hedge with a badger sett, dormice or nesting birds brings its own offences regardless of the hedgerow criteria.

A Preliminary Ecological Appraisal is the usual vehicle for the ecological half of that work, and the cost drivers are the same ones set out in our note on why ecology survey costs vary between quotes: season, length of boundary and whether the surveyor has to return.

Submitting a notice without the survey is a false economy. An authority with no information in front of it has every reason to serve a retention notice and let you argue later.

The period the authority has to respond

The authority has 42 days from receipt of a valid notice. If it serves no retention notice in that period, you may remove the hedgerow as described, and the permission is specific to what the notice described.

A notice that is not valid does not start the clock. Validity depends on the prescribed content, including a plan identifying the hedgerow, the reasons for removal and evidence of ownership, so a notice returned as invalid in week five has cost you five weeks. Submit it with a covering schedule that walks the authority through each criterion and says why the hedge does not meet it.

Where a retention notice is served, there is an appeal to the Secretary of State. That is a written process and the evidence is the survey you should already have.

Retention notices and the effect on a layout

Assume the worst case when drawing the scheme. A retained hedge on an internal boundary changes the developable area, the access position, the drainage and the plot layout, and redesigning after a retention notice is more expensive than designing around the hedge from the start.

Mandatory biodiversity net gain pushes in the same direction. Hedgerows are a separate module in the statutory metric with their own trading rules, so hedgerow units lost cannot be made good with grassland or scrub. A Biodiversity Net Gain Assessment completed by a competent person should run alongside the hedgerow work rather than after it, because retaining a hedge and planting into the gaps costs far less than replacing the units elsewhere.

Retention also affects the farm. A hedge kept through a field means the gateways, headlands and machinery turning circles have to work around it.

Offences and penalties for unauthorised removal

Removing an important hedgerow without authorisation is an offence, prosecuted in the magistrates' court, where the fine is unlimited. The authority can also serve a notice requiring you to plant a replacement hedgerow and to maintain it, and the replacement is then treated as the original for the purposes of the Regulations.

Enforcement is more common than people assume, because aerial imagery makes removal easy to date and neighbours report it. A contractor clearing a boundary on the owner's instruction does not transfer the liability.

Separate rules govern hedgerow management on agricultural land, including cutting dates and buffer strips, and those are administered through the farming regulatory system rather than by the planning authority. Check both before instructing a flail.

Programming the notice against a spring start

The seasons work against you, so the sequence has to be deliberate.

1. Survey in the growing season, roughly between April and September, when woody species can be identified and associated features are visible.
2. Carry out the map research in parallel, since it does not depend on weather.
3. Serve the notice in early autumn, which allows the 42 days and a margin for queries or an invalid notice.
4. Remove in late winter, after the 42 days have expired and before the bird nesting season, which generally runs from March to August.
5. Plant replacements in the following dormant season, with aftercare budgeted for at least three years.

Compress that and you lose a year. The hidden cost of a hedgerow notice is almost never the paperwork, and if you are pricing the wider submission at the same time, see PlanScope pricing for one free report, £50 per report, or Professional for unlimited reports.

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