Serving a section 211 notice for conservation area trees

A section 211 notice tree works procedure gives the council six weeks to decide whether it wants to protect your tree. You write to the local planning authority describing the tree and the work, you wait six weeks, and if the authority does nothing you may carry out the work as described. There is no consent to apply for and nothing for the authority to refuse. Its only real option, if it objects, is to make a Tree Preservation Order within that period.

This applies to trees in a conservation area that are not already covered by an Order. If an Order already protects the tree, the Order's consent procedure applies instead and no section 211 notice is needed.

What section 211 covers and what it does not

Section 211 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 requires six weeks' written notice before cutting down, topping, lopping, uprooting, wilfully damaging or wilfully destroying a tree in a conservation area.

Read that list carefully. Topping and lopping are included, so a heavy reduction or a crown lift on a mature tree needs notice even though nothing is felled. Root severance during groundworks counts as wilful damage. Repeated pollarding of a tree that has not been pollarded before changes its form permanently and is caught.

What is not caught: hedges, as a hedge is not a tree, although individual trees growing within a hedge line are. Shrubs are not trees. Routine pruning that does not amount to topping or lopping, such as removing a small branch obstructing a path, falls outside the section in practice, though the boundary is a matter of degree and authorities differ in where they draw it.

Dead wood removal from a living tree is pruning. Felling a dead tree is a separate matter, dealt with below.

Trees that fall below the diameter threshold

The Town and Country Planning (Tree Preservation) (England) Regulations 2012 exempt small trees from the section 211 requirement. The threshold is a diameter of 75 millimetres or less, measured at 1.5 metres above natural ground level. Where the work is thinning to improve the growth of other trees, the figure rises to 100 millimetres or less.

Measure it properly and record the measurement. A tape at 1.5 metres, a photograph with the tape in shot, dated. On a multi-stemmed tree the measurement convention is not obvious, and the same complication arises when calculating protected root areas, which is covered in root protection area calculations for a multi-stem tree.

A tree below the threshold needs no notice. That is the only part of this regime where a householder gets a clean answer without involving the council.

What the notice must contain

The notice has to give the authority enough to identify the tree and understand the work. In practice that means:

• the address and a plan or sketch showing each tree, numbered
• the species of each tree
• a description of the work on each tree, in arboricultural terms rather than "tidy up"
• the reason for the work
• your name, address and interest in the land

Most authorities publish a form and many accept the standard notice form through the national planning application service. Use the form if one exists, because a notice the authority does not recognise as a notice is a notice that does not start the clock.

Be specific about the work. "Reduce crown by up to 2 metres on the north side" is a description you can rely on later. "Prune as necessary" gives you nothing, and if the authority takes no action you have permission to do something undefined, which is no protection at all if a neighbour complains.

Where the work supports a development scheme, the arboricultural case belongs in a Tree Survey and Arboricultural Impact Assessment rather than in the notice itself.

The six week period and what the authority can do in it

The period runs from the date the authority receives the notice. During it the authority can do one of three things.

It can tell you it has no objection, in which case you may proceed straight away. It can make a Tree Preservation Order, which brings the tree into the Order regime and means you must then apply for consent in the normal way. Or it can say nothing at all, and at the end of six weeks you may carry out the work exactly as described.

The third outcome is more common than people expect, particularly in authorities with one tree officer covering several thousand trees. Silence is a lawful answer and it operates in your favour.

Once the six weeks have run, the works must be carried out within two years of the date of the notice. After that the permission lapses and you start again.

Where the authority makes an Order instead

An Order made during the six weeks is provisional for six months and takes effect immediately on service. You then have to apply for consent for the works, the authority decides that application, and a refusal or a condition you dislike can be appealed to the Planning Inspectorate.

There is also an objection route to the Order itself, which is separate from the consent application and is about whether the tree should be protected at all rather than whether the works should happen.

Do not read an Order as hostility. Tree officers often make an Order simply because a notice has drawn a tree to their attention and they want the ability to consider future applications. The practical consequence for you is a consent application and a longer timetable, and the practical consequence for the tree is permanent protection, including for the next owner.

Exempt works that need no notice

The exemptions mirror those for trees under an Order and are read strictly:

1. A dead tree, where you give the authority five working days' notice before the work, except where there is an immediate risk of serious harm.
2. Works urgently necessary to remove an immediate risk of serious harm, with notice to the authority as soon as practicable afterwards.
3. Works required to implement a full planning permission, where the permission necessarily requires them.
4. Works required by an Act of Parliament, or carried out by or at the behest of certain statutory undertakers.
5. Works to prevent or abate a nuisance, where the nuisance is a legal nuisance rather than an inconvenience.
6. Fruit trees cultivated for fruit production in the course of a business, where the work is in the interests of that production.

The dead and dangerous exemptions carry the most risk because you are judging the tree's condition and the authority may disagree afterwards. Commission a report from an arboriculturist, keep the photographs, keep the decay detection results if any were taken, and keep the timber on site if you can. The burden of showing the exemption applied falls on you.

The nuisance exemption is narrower than almost everyone assumes. Overhanging branches may give a right to abate at common law, but shading, leaf fall, honeydew and blocked gutters are generally not a nuisance in law, and an authority that takes a prosecution over a tree felled on those grounds will usually be on strong footing. Where roots are demonstrably affecting drains or foundations the position is different, and that evidence is the subject of trees and drainage: soakaways, sewers and root ingress.

Penalties and the replacement duty

Contravening section 211 is an offence. On summary conviction the fine is unlimited, and a court takes account of any financial benefit the defendant gained, such as the uplift in development value from removing a tree.

There is also a duty to plant a replacement tree of appropriate size and species at the same place as soon as reasonably practicable where a tree in a conservation area is removed in contravention of the section. The authority can enforce that duty by notice, and the replacement tree becomes subject to the same protection the original had.

Felling licences from the Forestry Commission sit on top of all this for larger volumes of timber, and the interaction between the two regimes is the subject of woodland orders and felling licences.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which documents a scheme affecting protected trees will need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority's tree officer or a qualified arboriculturist 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.