Tree constraints plan or tree protection plan: what each shows

A tree constraints plan and a tree protection plan are different drawings, produced at different stages, for different audiences. The constraints plan comes before the design and shows what the trees need. The protection plan comes after the design and shows what the contractor must do. Both are named in BS 5837:2012, and conditions on planning permissions refer to them by name, so submitting one when the condition asks for the other is a common and avoidable delay.

Where each drawing sits in the sequence

BS 5837:2012 sets out a sequence that runs survey, constraints, design, impact assessment, protection, method statement. Each output depends on the one before it.

An arboriculturist asked to produce a protection plan for a layout nobody consulted them about is being asked to rubber stamp a problem. That is the single most common reason tree conditions turn into a three-month argument.

What a tree constraints plan shows

The constraints plan is a scale drawing of the site with the trees drawn as the design team must treat them. It carries the surveyed stem position, the crown spread plotted at four cardinal points, the height, and the root protection area of each tree.

Root protection areas are the part that governs layout. For a single-stem tree, BS 5837:2012 sets the root protection area as a circle with a radius of twelve times the stem diameter, capped at 707 square metres, then adjusted in shape where soil conditions, existing structures or known root distribution justify it. The area is preserved even when the shape changes.

Two further constraints belong on the drawing and are often missing. The first is the future crown spread of young and semi-mature trees, since a scheme designed to today's canopy will produce pruning requests within a decade. The second is shade, usually shown as the indicative arc cast at midsummer, which matters for garden layout, habitable room windows and solar gain.

Categories are shown too. BS 5837 grades trees A, B, C and U, where U covers trees that should be removed for reasons unrelated to the development. A category U tree next to your proposed access is useful information before you design the access somewhere else.

What a tree protection plan shows

The protection plan is a construction drawing. It shows which trees are retained, which are removed, where protective barriers go, where ground protection is needed, and the extent of the construction exclusion zone that the barriers create.

It should also show the practical things that make the exclusion zone survive contact with a site. Where does the site compound go. Where do materials get stored. Where do vehicles turn. Where does a service run cross a root protection area, and is it being hand dug or thrust bored.

Barrier specification matters. The default in BS 5837:2012 is a scaffold framework with weldmesh panels, braced and fixed so it cannot be moved by one person. A line of loose temporary fence panels is not the default, and a tree officer who has seen a few sites will say so.

Where a permanent surface is to be built within a root protection area, the protection plan should cross-refer to the engineering detail rather than describe it in a note. Cellular confinement and no-dig construction are engineering solutions with specifications, and the interaction with drainage runs deserves its own attention, as the guidance on trees, drainage, soakaways and root ingress explains.

The impact assessment that links them

Between the two drawings sits the arboricultural impact assessment. It takes the proposed layout, tests it against the constraints plan and reports what the design does to the trees. Losses, incursions into root protection areas, pruning requirements, changes in levels, shading of new windows, and the pressure that future occupiers will put on retained trees.

Councils usually expect an author with a relevant arboricultural qualification, and professional review is strongly advised before submission. The tree survey and arboricultural impact assessment page sets out what the document covers and who is usually accepted as its author.

The assessment is where honesty pays. An assessment that finds no impact on any tree, on a site where a building sits three metres from a mature oak, invites a request for further information and loses the author credibility for the rest of the application.

Drawing conventions tree officers look for

Consistency between the drawings is what makes them quick to check. Six conventions do most of the work.

• Colour coding by category, applied identically on the survey plan, constraints plan and protection plan.
• Tree numbers that match the survey schedule exactly, with no renumbering between revisions.
• Root protection areas shown as a hatched or tinted area rather than a dashed line that can be mistaken for crown spread.
• Retained and removed trees distinguished by a clear graphic convention, with removals also listed in a schedule.
• The base drawing being the current proposed site layout, at the same scale and orientation as the architect's plan.
• A north point, a scale bar and a legend that explains every symbol used.

Plot the drawing over the proposed layout, not over an old survey. A protection plan drawn on a superseded site plan tells the officer nothing about the scheme in front of them.

Version control across revisions

Schemes change during determination. The trees do not, but the drawings that describe their relationship to the scheme do, and losing control of versions is what produces conditions referring to documents that no longer match the approved plans.

Adopt three habits. Give every arboricultural drawing a revision letter and a date in the title block, and change them together. Keep the survey schedule as a separate document with its own revision, so a layout change does not force a resurvey reference. And when the architect issues a revised layout, ask explicitly whether the arboricultural drawings need reissuing, rather than assuming somebody else has checked.

When the decision notice arrives, the condition will list document titles and revision numbers. Those are the documents you are bound to, and discharging them is easier when the set is coherent, as the note on discharging a tree protection condition without delay sets out.

Which drawing a condition is actually asking for

Read the condition wording literally. Four patterns turn up repeatedly.

A condition requiring development to be carried out "in accordance with the approved tree protection plan" is a compliance condition. Nothing needs submitting unless the plan changes.

A condition requiring submission of "a tree protection plan and arboricultural method statement" before commencement is a pre-commencement condition, and both documents are needed. Sending the constraints plan instead will produce a holding letter.

A condition requiring "details of tree protection measures" without naming a document is satisfied by a protection plan and method statement together, and it is worth saying so in the covering letter.

A condition requiring a pre-commencement site meeting with the tree officer needs diarising, because it is the one condition that cannot be discharged by email.

As an illustrative example, a new dwelling in a large garden with two category B limes along the frontage would carry a constraints plan showing both root protection areas overlapping the proposed driveway, an impact assessment concluding that a no-dig surface is needed across 40 square metres, a protection plan showing barriers on the garden side and ground protection on the driveway line, and a method statement covering the no-dig build-up and supervision. Four documents, one sequence, one set of tree numbers.

Planting proposals that follow on from tree loss sit in a separate document again, which is where a Landscape Strategy comes in. To see which of these 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.