Tree and Hedgerow Law for Smallholders: TPOs, Felling Licences and the Hedgerows Regulations

There is a comforting assumption behind a lot of smallholding jobs: it's my land, so it's my tree, and my hedge, to do with as I please. On trees and hedges, that assumption is often wrong. A single mature oak on your boundary might carry a Tree Preservation Order you never knew about. That scruffy old field hedge might be legally "important" and protected. And even where nothing special applies, felling growing trees usually needs a licence unless you stay inside a fairly modest exemption. This is one of those corners of the law where the sensible move is to check first and cut second.

This is a plain-English guide, not legal advice. Tree and hedgerow law is devolved and it changes, so treat this as a map of the main rules and always confirm the current position with the source and your local authority before any work. Read the caution below first.

Tree Preservation Orders: written consent, or a criminal offence

A Tree Preservation Order, or TPO, is made by a local planning authority to protect a specific tree, group of trees or woodland in the interests of amenity. If a tree is covered by one, it is a criminal offence to cut it down, top it, lop it, uproot it, or wilfully damage or destroy it, without the authority's written consent. The Order does not care who owns the tree.

The penalties are the reason to take this seriously. Under section 210 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, someone who destroys a protected tree is "liable, if convicted in the magistrates' court, to a fine of up to £20,000", and "in serious cases a person may be committed for trial in the Crown Court and, if convicted, is liable to an unlimited fine." The court can also take into account any financial benefit that resulted from the offence. Lesser breaches, such as pruning that falls short of destruction, carry a smaller fine. And there is usually a duty to plant a replacement tree afterwards.

There are genuine exceptions, but they are narrower than people hope, and you have to prove them. The main ones are dead trees (though you normally have to give the authority five working days' written notice first), trees that pose an urgent, immediate risk of serious harm, the minimum work needed to abate a legal nuisance in its strict legal sense, fruit trees grown as part of a business, and work done to comply with an Act of Parliament, such as felling authorised by a felling licence. Wanting more light or a tidier view is not on the list.

Conservation-area trees: six weeks' notice first

Even without a TPO, trees in a conservation area get their own protection under section 211 of the same Act. Here the rule is a notice, not an application. You must tell the local planning authority, using a "section 211 notice", six weeks before you carry out work on the tree. That window lets the authority decide whether to slap a full TPO on it. You can go ahead sooner only if the authority gives consent, and the penalties for ignoring the rule are the same as for a TPO breach.

There is a size exemption, and this is where the detail trips people up. A section 211 notice is not required for "the cutting down, topping or lopping or uprooting of a tree whose diameter does not exceed 75 millimetres", or a tree "whose diameter does not exceed 100 millimetres" where the sole purpose is to improve the growth of other trees. Crucially, that diameter is measured over the bark "at 1.5 metres above ground level".

Felling licences: the firewood question

Separate from TPOs and conservation areas, the Forestry Commission controls the felling of growing trees in England under the Forestry Act 1967. As gov.uk puts it, you will need a felling licence to fell growing trees "unless exemptions apply", and everyone involved, including landowners, contractors and timber merchants, can be prosecuted if trees are felled without one where a licence was required. In England the licence itself is free.

Two exemptions matter most to smallholders. The first is size. In gov.uk's words: "You need a felling licence if your trees have an over bark diameter of 8cm or more, or in the case of coppice or underwood, 15cm or more, measured at 1.3m above ground level." Thinning to help other trees grow has its own 10 cm threshold. Below those diameters, no licence is needed.

The second is volume, and this is the firewood rule. For trees above those diameters, you can fell up to 5 cubic metres in any single calendar quarter (January to March, April to June, July to September, October to December) without a licence. But selling is limited within that: "You can sell up to 2 of the 5 cubic metres per calendar quarter. If you sell more then you will require a licence."

One thing the felling exemption does not do is override everything else. Being under the 5 cubic metre limit does not release you from a TPO, from conservation-area protection, from Site of Special Scientific Interest rules, or from the nesting-bird law. Lopping, topping and hedge-trimming are not counted as "felling" at all, and there are further exemptions for gardens, orchards, churchyards and public open space, and for dangerous trees. If you are unsure, the Forestry Commission will tell you whether a licence is needed before you start.

Hedgerows Regulations 1997: you may not just grub it out

Old field hedges have their own protection in England and Wales under the Hedgerows Regulations 1997. If a hedge is caught, you must give the local planning authority a hedgerow removal notice before taking it out, and gov.uk warns you "could get an unlimited fine if you break these rules".

Not every hedge is protected. To be caught, a hedge has to tick several boxes at once:

• Length. It is more than 20 metres long, or shorter than 20 metres but meeting another hedge at each end.
• Location. It is on or next to agricultural or forestry land, common land, a village green, a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a protected site, a nature reserve, or land in certain public ownership. A hedge within or between private gardens is not protected.
• Importance. As gov.uk states, "A hedgerow is important, and is protected, if it's at least 30 years old and meets at least one of these criteria", the criteria being about archaeology, history, the landscape or wildlife.

If the hedge is protected and you want it gone, you serve the removal notice and wait. The authority has 42 days to respond and will consult the parish council in that time. It can issue a retention notice telling you to keep the hedge, or give written permission to remove it, and if it does not reply within the 42 days you may generally proceed. So an old countryside boundary is not something to rip out over a weekend.

The two rules that cluster around 1 March to 31 August

This is the part people most often muddle, so here it is laid out plainly. Two separate laws bunch up in the same part of the year, and they are not the same rule.

The hedge-cutting ban has its own exemptions, including overhanging growth that obstructs or endangers a road or footpath, hedge-laying or coppicing between 1 March and 30 April, hedges within a private garden's curtilage, and certain health, pest and statutory situations. Some late-August cutting to sow oilseed rape or temporary grass is allowed only if you notify the Rural Payments Agency first. You do not have to ask permission for the listed exemptions, but you must keep records to prove you relied on one, and wilfully obstructing an RPA officer on a visit is itself an offence carrying a fine of up to £1,000.

There is also a separate regime for so-called high hedges, under the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, which lets a neighbour complain to the council about a line of tall evergreens that blocks light. It is a complaint-led nuisance process, not a right to go and cut, and councils may charge a fee to consider a complaint. It is a different thing again from everything above, so if a neighbour dispute is the real issue, ask your council how their high-hedge process works.

Nation by nation

Felling is devolved, and the hedgerow rules are not UK-wide, so never assume an English figure travels. Here is the shape of it.

Scotland

Scottish Forestry runs felling permissions, and the everyday exemption is worded differently from England: "You may fell up to 5m³ of timber per landholding in any calendar quarter without permission." Note "per landholding", and note that no separate 2 cubic metre sale sub-limit is stated, so do not carry the English sale limit north of the border. There is also an exemption for trees with a diameter at breast height, measured 1.3 metres from the ground, of 10 centimetres or less, along with exemptions for gardens, orchards, churchyards and open spaces, and for dangerous or dead trees. The Hedgerows Regulations 1997 do not apply in Scotland, which has its own separate arrangements.

Wales

Natural Resources Wales issues felling licences under the same Forestry Act 1967. You do not need a licence to fell less than 5 cubic metres in a calendar quarter, or where trees measured at 1.3 metres from the ground are 8 centimetres or less in diameter (10 centimetres or less for thinning, 15 centimetres or less for cutting coppice), along with the usual garden, orchard, danger and planning exemptions. Illegal felling carries an unlimited fine. The Hedgerows Regulations 1997 do apply in Wales, so the countryside-hedge removal rules above hold there too.

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is the odd one out, and worth a clear flag, because its felling trigger is not about volume but about area. Under the Forestry Act (Northern Ireland) 2010, run by DAERA's Forest Service, owners of private woodland of 0.2 hectares or more need a licence to fell, and are required to re-establish the woodland under an approved plan. There are exemptions, for example for fruit trees, gardens, parks and churchyards, for scrub of 8 centimetres or less, for lopping and topping, for up to 5 cubic metres a quarter, and for felling authorised by planning permission. The Hedgerows Regulations 1997 do not extend to Northern Ireland, which has its own separate hedgerow and wildlife rules, so check the DAERA position before clearing anything.

The traps people fall into

• Assuming that owning the land means you can fell the tree. TPOs and conservation-area rules apply regardless of ownership.
• Not checking for a TPO or a conservation area before starting. The burden of proving an exemption is on you.
• Mixing up the measuring heights: 1.5 metres for the conservation-area size exemption, 1.3 metres for the felling-licence diameters.
• Thinking the 5 cubic metre felling allowance lets you sell freely. Only 2 of those cubic metres may be sold per quarter in England.
• Treating the felling exemption as a free pass. It does not override TPOs, conservation areas, SSSIs or the nesting-bird law.
• Grubbing out an old field hedge without a removal notice, on the assumption all hedges are fair game. Old countryside hedges are often protected.
• Conflating the farm hedge-cutting ban with the nesting-bird law. They are different rules with different scope, and the bird law runs all year.
• Relying on an old guide that still cites cross-compliance, which ended in England on 1 January 2024.
• Carrying English figures into Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, where the exemptions, and even the trigger, differ.

Before you cut or fell anything: check these

1. Have you checked with the local planning authority whether the tree has a TPO or sits in a conservation area?
2. If it is a conservation-area tree above the size exemption, have you given the six weeks' section 211 notice?
3. Do you need a felling licence, or are you genuinely within an exemption, and have you measured diameters at the correct height for the rule you are using?
4. If you plan to sell timber, are you inside the sale sub-limit for your nation (2 cubic metres a quarter in England)?
5. Is the tree or hedge one you can prove an exemption for, and have you kept photos, measurements and dates?
6. For a hedge, is it a protected countryside hedgerow that needs a removal notice, rather than an unprotected garden hedge?
7. Are you inside the farm hedge-cutting dates, and separately, could there be an active bird's nest, which is protected all year?
8. Which nation's rules apply, and have you used that nation's authority and figures rather than assuming England's?

When in doubt, check the current guidance for your nation (gov.uk and the Forestry Commission for England, Natural Resources Wales for Wales, Scottish Forestry for Scotland, and DAERA's Forest Service for Northern Ireland) and speak to your local planning authority before any work. On protected trees and old hedges, a quick enquiry first is far cheaper than a fine and a replanting order later.