What the council can do during the six week notice period

During the six weeks after a section 211 notice lands on a council's desk, the authority has exactly one significant power: it can make a Tree Preservation Order on your tree. It can also inspect, telephone you, negotiate a lesser specification or decide the tree is not worth protecting and do nothing at all. What it cannot do is refuse the notice, because a section 211 notice six weeks procedure produces no decision to refuse.

That is the shape of the thing. You are giving the council an opportunity to protect the tree properly, and if it does not take that opportunity within six weeks, you may carry out the works you described.

What has to be in the notice

The notice is a letter, an email or the council's own form, and the content requirement under the 2012 Regulations is that it contains enough particulars to identify the tree, with a plan where the description alone would not do it, and a description of the proposed works.

In practice, a notice that gets accepted first time contains:

• Your name, the address of the land and a contact number.
• The species of each tree and its position, marked on a sketch plan or a photograph with the tree circled.
• The operation proposed in arboricultural terms. Crown reduction expressed as finished dimensions or a percentage of the current crown. Crown lift to a stated height above ground. Removal of named limbs. Felling.
• The reason, which is not strictly required but is what prompts a tree officer to pick up the phone rather than reach for an Order.

Vague notices cause most of the trouble. A notice to "reduce and reshape" does not tell the officer what will be left, so the officer either asks for more or makes an Order to preserve the option of controlling the work. Write the specification as you would brief the contractor, and the notice usually passes unremarked.

Send it to the address the council specifies and ask for an acknowledgement with a date. The six weeks runs from receipt, and the date of receipt is the only date that matters if anything goes wrong later.

The six weeks, and when work can start

The period is six weeks from receipt. Count it carefully, and do not count from the date you wrote the letter or the date you pressed send on an email that bounced.

Once the six weeks has passed without an Order being made, you may carry out the works exactly as described, and that entitlement lasts two years from the date of the notice. Two consequences follow. You do not need to rush the work. And you cannot change it. Works that differ from the notice, even in a way the contractor considers an improvement, are unauthorised, so a change of specification needs a fresh notice and a fresh six weeks.

There is no deemed consent document and no certificate at the end of the period. Silence is the permission, which is why the acknowledgement and your own records matter.

Making an Order in response

This is the authority's substantive power, and it is used often in the first few years after a conservation area is designated or where a notice reveals a tree the council did not know about.

An Order can be made with immediate provisional effect, so it bites from the moment it is served rather than when it is confirmed. From that point the notice route falls away and you need a formal consent application instead, decided within eight weeks with a right of appeal if it is refused.

You can object to the Order during the consultation period before confirmation, and objections are considered. The grounds that carry weight are factual: the tree's condition, its actual visibility from public places, its proximity to the building. An objection that argues the inconvenience of protection does not succeed.

A tree officer will usually visit before deciding whether to make an Order. Our note on what a tree officer inspects on site covers what that visit is looking for, and it is worth being there.

What else the council can do inside the six weeks

Four things happen regularly, none of them a formal decision.

The officer asks for more information. You are not obliged to provide it, and refusing tends to produce an Order, so it is usually worth answering.

The officer proposes a lesser specification. A reduction of three metres instead of five, or a crown lift instead of the removal of a lower limb. Agreeing in writing and serving a revised notice restarts the six weeks, which is the cost of the compromise. Agreeing informally and carrying out the lesser works is safe, because doing less than you notified is not an offence.

The officer says nothing and the period expires. This is the most common outcome.

The officer writes to say the council has no objection. Helpful, and worth keeping, though it does not shorten the six weeks unless the letter says so and the council has a scheme for early release.

Works that need no notice at all

The exemptions are real and narrower than people assume.

Trees below the size threshold fall outside the regime entirely. A stem diameter of 75mm or less, measured at 1.5m above ground level, is exempt, with a 100mm threshold where the work is thinning to improve the growth of other trees. Measure it rather than estimating, and photograph the tape in position.

Dead trees may be removed with five working days notice to the council before the works, except where the danger is immediate. Keep photographs taken before the saw comes out, because the burden of showing the tree was dead rests on you.

Trees presenting an immediate risk of serious harm may be dealt with to the extent necessary to remove the risk, and no further. Fruit trees cultivated for fruit production, work by statutory undertakers, work required by an Act of Parliament, and work needed to implement a full planning permission each carry their own exemption.

That last one is why tree works should be dealt with inside a planning application rather than alongside one. Where a permission has been granted and the works are required to implement it, the notice procedure does not apply, and the tree officer has already had their say through the application. A tree survey and an arboricultural method statement submitted with the scheme achieve that in a single pass.

Starting early, and what follows

Carrying out works to a tree in a conservation area before the six weeks expires, without an exemption, is a criminal offence. For destroying a tree the available fine is unlimited. For lesser works there is a separate offence with its own penalty.

Councils do prosecute, and the cases that reach court usually share a feature: the works were extensive, a neighbour reported them, and the owner had no notice on file. Contractors are prosecuted too, so a reputable tree surgeon will ask to see the notice and the acknowledgement before starting. If yours does not ask, that tells you something.

If works have already been carried out early, take advice promptly rather than waiting to see what happens. The replacement duty described below applies regardless, and early engagement affects how the authority approaches the breach.

Records to keep once the notice expires

Keep a single file. The notice as sent, with proof of sending. The council's acknowledgement with the date of receipt. Any correspondence agreeing a revised specification. Photographs before, during and after. The contractor's invoice describing the work actually done.

Keep it for at least the two years the notice runs, and longer if you may sell the property, because a buyer's solicitor can raise the question and an unexplained stump is awkward to answer years later.

Replacement planting

Where a tree in a conservation area is removed, whether in breach of the notice requirement or under the dead or dangerous exemptions, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 places a duty on the landowner to plant a replacement of an appropriate size and species at the same place, as soon as reasonably possible.

The council can enforce that duty by notice, and the obligation runs with the land, so it passes to whoever owns the property next. Where the same spot is not practical, the authority can agree a different position, and getting that agreement in writing before planting avoids replanting twice.

Choose the species with the eventual size in mind rather than the gap you are filling now. Where a condition on a planning permission also requires planting, the maintenance obligations that come with it are covered in our note on the five year maintenance condition for new planting.

Serve the notice, get the date of receipt in writing, and diary the six weeks. Those three steps prevent nearly every problem in this area.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. 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.