Removing an important hedgerow: the notice procedure

Important hedgerow removal is controlled by the Hedgerows Regulations 1997, and the procedure is a notice rather than an application. You serve a hedgerow removal notice on the local planning authority, wait 42 days, and either receive a hedgerow retention notice or become free to proceed. Removing a countryside hedgerow without serving that notice is a criminal offence carrying an unlimited fine in the magistrates court, and the authority can require you to plant a replacement.

The regulations are old, narrow and easy to misread. They do not protect every hedge, and the ones they do protect are defined by a technical test that needs a botanist in the growing season.

Which hedgerows are covered

Two conditions have to be met together.

The hedgerow must be 20 metres or more in length, or shorter than that while meeting another hedgerow at each end. And it must grow on or adjacent to common land, protected land, a site of special scientific interest, a local nature reserve, or land used for agriculture, forestry or the keeping of horses, ponies or donkeys.

The exclusion that catches most householders is the curtilage rule. A hedgerow within, or marking the boundary of, the curtilage of a dwellinghouse falls outside the regulations entirely. So the beech hedge along a garden boundary is unprotected, while the same hedge 30 metres further on where it divides two fields is caught.

Trees within a hedgerow are a separate question. A tree with a Tree Preservation Order on it keeps that protection whatever the hedgerow regulations say, and the consequences of getting that wrong are set out in the note on penalties for damaging a protected tree.

What makes a hedgerow important

A hedgerow is important if it has existed for 30 years or more and meets at least one criterion in Schedule 1 of the regulations.

The historical and archaeological criteria include marking the boundary of a pre-1850 parish or township, marking the boundary of an estate or manor recorded before 1600, forming part of a field system that pre-dates the Inclosure Acts, or containing a scheduled monument or a recorded archaeological feature.

The wildlife and landscape criteria are botanical, and they work on a sliding scale. Seven or more woody species averaged across a 30 metre length makes a hedgerow important on its own. Six woody species will do it with three associated features, and five with four features. The associated features are things like a bank or wall along the hedge, fewer than ten per cent gaps, standard trees at intervals, a parallel ditch, woodland ground flora, and connections to other hedgerows, ponds or woodland.

That sliding scale is why a survey in February is worthless. Woody species identification and ground flora both need the growing season, so a botanical survey between April and September is the only reliable basis for the notice. The detail of the criteria is set out in the note on important hedgerows under the Hedgerows Regulations 1997.

Serving the removal notice

The notice goes to the local planning authority and must include a plan showing the hedgerow, a statement of the reasons for removal, and evidence of the hedgerow's age where you have it.

The authority then has 42 days. It may issue a hedgerow retention notice prohibiting removal, give written consent, or say nothing, in which case removal may proceed after the period expires. Keep the proof of service and diary the date. A verbal assurance from an officer is not consent.

Where a retention notice is issued you can appeal to the Secretary of State. The appeal is decided on whether the hedgerow meets the importance criteria and, where it does, whether there are reasons that justify removal.

One practical warning. The notice covers the length of hedgerow you describe. Removing more than the notice identified puts the extra length outside any consent.

Exemptions that avoid the notice

Regulation 6 lists the cases where no notice is needed. The useful ones on a development site are removal carried out in connection with development for which planning permission has been granted, making an opening in place of an existing opening that is to be filled, obtaining temporary access in an emergency, and works required for national defence or by a statutory undertaker.

Proper management of the hedgerow is also exempt, and so is removing a dead or diseased hedgerow plant or works to prevent the spread of tree disease. Coppicing and laying are management, not removal.

The planning permission exemption is the one to plan around. If the permission is granted with the hedgerow shown as removed on the approved plans, you do not need a separate notice. If the permission shows it retained and you take it out anyway, you have both a hedgerow offence and a breach of condition.

Recording before anything happens

Survey the hedgerow before any works, in the growing season, and record the result properly: species list per 30 metre section, associated features, gaps, standards, and photographs from fixed points.

Do it even when you are confident the hedgerow is not important. The record is what answers an allegation two years later, and the botanist's field sheets are worth more than anyone's recollection. A tree survey to BS 5837:2012 covers the trees within and beside the hedge but does not answer the Schedule 1 question, so brief both pieces of work at the same time.

Hedgerow management has also changed. Rules on cutting dates and buffer strips for agricultural hedgerows now sit in separate regulations administered by the Rural Payments Agency, with a cutting ban across the bird nesting season. Check the current position on gov.uk, because that regime is newer than the 1997 regulations and enforced by a different body.

Where hedgerows sit in biodiversity net gain

The Hedgerows Regulations and biodiversity net gain are separate obligations with different tests, and satisfying one does nothing for the other.

The statutory metric treats hedgerows as a distinct module with their own units, measured in kilometres rather than hectares, and a scheme that loses hedgerow length has to replace it with hedgerow units rather than with area habitat. Species-rich native hedgerows in good condition score high, and they take years to reach target condition from a new planting, which the temporal risk multiplier penalises.

So the hedgerow you were going to take out for a visibility splay may cost more in units than the splay is worth. That is a design conversation to have before the layout is fixed, alongside the landscape strategy that will eventually have to show the replacement planting.

Stripping a hedge before submitting an application does not help either, because the metric baseline is taken from the pre-development condition including any degradation carried out to avoid the requirement, as the note on clearing a site before you apply explains.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. A botanical survey by a suitably qualified ecologist is the only sound basis for deciding whether a hedgerow is important, and councils expect a suitably qualified author. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.