Trees are important for maintaining the look and feel of an area. They offer many benefits (mainly keeping us alive!) and encourage biodiversity and help to counter the harmful effects of pollution. However, there are many trees that are not given the protection of a Tree Preservation Order (TPO). This means, that mature and important trees can be felled and there is little that the local authority can do about it.

This week, Hestia Town Planning have been helping local residents apply to protect some important trees within their village. Over the last years a number of trees within the village had been felled, changing the streetscape significantly for the worse. The villagers were worried that to lose more trees would irrevocably damage the character of this part of the village, not to mention the loss of wildlife habitat.

How to obtain a TPO

The good news is that anyone can request a TPO and it doesn’t need to be on your land. If you speak to your local authority then they should be able to point you in the direction of your tree and conservation department. They can then determine whether the tree(s) requested have the attributes for a TPO. These attributes will be that they are in a good physical condition and have public amenity value. You will have to describe what public amenity value they give, or will be lost if they are removed, and locate the trees on a map.

Examples of amenity value are given below:

Amenity Value

TPOs should be used to protect selected trees and woodlands if their removal would have a significant impact on the local environment and its enjoyment by the public. Suggested amenity value assessment criteria for TPOs:

1. Visibility: trees need to be seen clearly from a public place, such as a road or footpath for the impact on the local environment to be assessed as significant.
2. Individual impact: the mere fact that a tree is publicly visible will not itself be sufficient to warrant a TPO. You should also assess the tree’s particular importance now or in the future by reference to its size and form, special factors such as its rarity or scarcity, its intrinsic beauty, historic value or interest within a local area or contribution to the landscape or to the character or appearance of a conservation area or as a screen eg to an eyesore or future development. In relation to a group of trees or woodland, an assessment should be made of its collective impact; Other factors, such as importance as a wildlife habitat, may be taken into account but alone would not be sufficient to warrant a TPO.
3. Wider impact: the significance of the trees in their local surroundings should also be assessed, taking into account how suitable they are to their particular setting (including in a built up area), as well as the presence of other trees in the vicinity.

After giving amenity value reasons for individual or groups of trees, they need to be clearly identified on a map – ideally on a 1:1250 OS map and relative to features such as boundaries and giving numbers and species of each or group of trees. Trees may be specified:

1. Individually (each tree – T1, T2 etc – circled in black on the map)
2. By reference to an area (boundary of each area – A1, A2 etc – indicated on the map by a dotted black line)
3. In groups (each group – G1, G2 etc – shown within a broken black line) – used for trees whose overall impact and quality as a group merit protection.
4. As woodlands (the boundary of each woodland – W1, W2 – etc indicated by a continuous black line).

Any combination of these four categories may be used in a single TPO.

For scattered trees over an area, an area TPO can be made (e.g. ‘the trees of whatever species within the area marked A1 on the map’ – generally only used as temporary measure in emergencies).

Hedgerow Protection

A TPO may be made to protect trees in hedges or an old hedge which has become a line of trees of a reasonable height and is not subject to hedgerow management.

The Hedgerows Regulations 1997 protects hedgerows in the countryside on agricultural land. If the hedge, or part of it that people want to remove is over 30 years old and more than 20 metres in length, it is defined as a ‘protected hedgerow’ and the local authority must be contacted before any action can be taken.

If a hedge forms a boundary to a residential property then people do not need the local authorities permission to remove a hedge – unless it is protected by a planning condition or a legal covenant on the house deeds.