How a tree becomes protected by a Tree Preservation Order

A Tree Preservation Order is made by the council, on its own initiative or after somebody asks for one, and it can take effect the same day. The power sits in section 198 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, which lets a local planning authority make an order where it appears expedient in the interests of amenity. The procedure that follows is set out in the Town and Country Planning (Tree Preservation) (England) Regulations 2012. Understanding how a TPO is made matters because the protection usually arrives before you are told about it.

The power to make an order

Two words do the work in section 198. Expedient, and amenity.

Amenity is not defined in the legislation, so authorities apply their own assessment, usually a scoring system covering visibility from public places, the condition and life expectancy of the tree, its size and form, and any particular importance such as rarity or a contribution to a conservation area. Visibility from a public vantage point is the element that carries most weight almost everywhere. A superb specimen hidden inside a walled garden scores poorly on that test, which surprises people.

Expediency asks whether an order is needed now. An authority does not have to wait for a threat, though in practice most orders are made because one has appeared. A planning application, a tree surgeon's van, a for sale board or a neighbour's telephone call are all common triggers.

Anyone can ask an authority to make an order. There is no form and no fee in most districts, and the tree officer decides.

Protection from the moment the order is made

This is the part that catches owners out. An order can include a direction under section 201 that it takes effect provisionally on the day it is made. Most orders include one.

Provisional protection means the tree is fully protected straight away, before any consultation, before any objection and before the order is confirmed. Cutting it down at that point is an offence in exactly the way it would be after confirmation.

The provisional effect lasts for six months from the date the order was made, or until the order is confirmed, whichever comes first. If the authority does nothing within six months, the protection falls away.

So the sequence is protection first, consultation second. It is a deliberate design, because an order that only took effect after a consultation period would be useless against a chainsaw booked for Tuesday.

What the order document contains

The 2012 Regulations set out a model form, and every order follows it. Expect four parts.

• The operative provisions, which prohibit cutting down, topping, lopping, uprooting, wilful damage and wilful destruction without the authority's written consent.
• A schedule listing the trees, identified by species and by reference to a map.
• A map, at a scale sufficient to identify the trees, which is the definitive record of what is protected.
• A statement of the authority's reasons for making the order, served with it.

Read the schedule and the map together. A schedule entry saying "T1 Oak" means nothing without the map position, and disputes about whether a particular tree is covered are almost always resolved by looking at the map rather than the list.

The order protects the tree, not the land, and it continues to apply when the property is sold.

Who gets told, and how to object

Within a short period of making the order, the authority must serve a copy on the people interested in the land, which means the owner, the occupier and anyone else it knows to have an interest. The copy comes with the statement of reasons and with notice of how to object.

Objections and representations must be made in writing to the authority within the period stated in the notice, which cannot be less than 28 days from the date of service. The authority must consider them before deciding whether to confirm.

Objections that succeed tend to be factual. The tree is not where the map says. The species is wrong. The tree is in serious decline and a survey says so. The order includes a self-seeded sycamore that nobody intended to protect. Objections that fail tend to be about inconvenience, leaf fall, shading of a garden or an intention to build.

There is no right of appeal against confirmation of an order. A challenge would have to be brought in the High Court, which is rare and expensive. What you can do afterwards is apply for consent to carry out work, and appeal a refusal of that consent to the Planning Inspectorate.

Confirmation within six months

The authority has six months from the date it made the order to confirm it. It may confirm with modifications, which is how objections about the wrong species or an extra tree get resolved, and it may decide not to confirm at all.

Once confirmed, the order has no expiry date. It stays until the authority revokes it or varies it.

Authorities do occasionally miss the six-month deadline, and the provisional protection then lapses. Do not treat that as an opportunity. The authority can simply make a fresh order the following week, and having felled a tree in the gap will not endear you to the officer who assesses your next application.

Individual, group, area and woodland orders

The model order allows four categories, and the difference matters when you come to do work.

Area orders are the awkward ones. Because they protect only the trees present on the date the order was made, establishing whether a particular tree was there decades ago can require historical aerial photography. National guidance discourages new area orders except as a short-term measure, and encourages authorities to resurvey and replace them with individual or group orders.

Woodland orders interact with forestry law, since felling licensing runs on a parallel track and the two regimes have to be reconciled before work starts, as set out in woodland orders and felling licences.

Finding out whether your tree is covered

Three checks, in order.

1. Ask the local planning authority directly. Most hold a TPO register and many publish it as a map layer on their website. A written response is worth having.
2. Check the national planning data platform, which now publishes tree preservation order datasets supplied by authorities. Coverage is improving and is not yet complete, so treat an absence as inconclusive.
3. Check whether the property is in a conservation area, because trees there are protected separately. You must give the authority six weeks written notice before carrying out work on a tree in a conservation area with a stem diameter above the threshold, and the authority can respond by making a TPO.

A conveyancing search should reveal an order, though searches have been known to miss one, particularly where the order predates digital records.

If the work is really needed, apply for consent rather than assuming an exemption applies. The exemption for dead trees requires five working days notice to the authority before the work, and the narrower exemption for removing an immediate risk of serious harm is exactly that. There is also a duty to replace a tree that has been removed, and penalties for unauthorised felling of a protected tree are set at an unlimited fine.

Getting the specification right protects you as well as the tree, and the note on specifying crown work so contractors price it correctly covers how to describe the work in a consent application. Where a development is involved, the survey that records the trees is covered on the tree survey page, and any replacement planting secured by condition follows the rules in tree planting conditions.

To see which documents your project is likely to need, enter your postcode on PlanScope.

This is general guidance, not legal advice, so 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.