← All guides · Rules & paperwork · Updated September 2026

Conservation area hedge and tree work in Chatham. The section 211 notice, step by step.

Getting a quote is the easy part. Hedge and tree work inside Medway's conservation areas needs a six-week written notice to the council before the job starts, and skipping it is a criminal offence carrying a fine of up to £20,000. Here is the full sequence, from address check to work day.

1. Before anything else: check the address

   Medway Council designates conservation areas under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. Medway Council's conservation areas page lists 24 of them across the borough, from Chatham Historic Dockyard, Maidstone Road Chatham and New Road Chatham to Historic Rochester, Gillingham Green, Gillingham Park, Upnor and Cliffe, so the rules are not confined to the obvious historic core.

   The address check is the first thing we do before quoting any job in a potential conservation area. Medway Council's conservation area boundary maps are available through their planning portal. If the property falls inside a designated area, section 211 applies to any qualifying tree, including trees that form part of a hedge or hedgerow along the boundary.

2. Does the work trigger the notice? Measure the stem at 1.5 metres

   Under section 211, the notice requirement applies to any tree with a stem diameter exceeding 75mm, measured at 1.5 metres above ground level. A garden hedge left to grow for fifteen or twenty years, or a mature leylandii screen planted in the 1980s, will often have individual trunks well above that threshold even though the owner thinks of it as a hedge rather than a row of trees.

   Routine trimming to maintain an established hedge's existing shape, a light top-and-sides pass, does not ordinarily trigger section 211. The obligation bites on removal, a hard reduction (taking the plant materially shorter or narrower than its established form), or any work that substantially alters the tree's character. If there is any doubt, treat it as triggering the notice. Filing an unnecessary notice costs six weeks. Not filing one when you should have can cost up to £20,000 in the magistrates' court (unlimited in the Crown Court) and a criminal conviction.

3. Filing the notice: in writing to Medway Council, at least six weeks ahead

   No statutory form is required. A written notice, a letter or an email to Medway Council's planning department, that clearly identifies the tree or trees, describes the proposed work, and gives the full address is sufficient. Medway Council accepts submissions through the Planning Portal online. Submit it and obtain a written or electronic acknowledgement confirming the date of receipt: that date is when the six-week clock starts.

   For the step-by-step version, with Medway Council's own links and a worked example of what to write, see how to get permission to prune trees in a Chatham conservation area, week by week.

   We file conservation area notices as a standard part of our quoting process for any job at a designated address, at no extra charge. The paperwork is straightforward; the delay is what needs planning around. If you are trying to hit a particular seasonal cutting window, see our season-by-season calendar for why timing the notice against the calendar matters, particularly in relation to the nesting season that follows in spring.

4. The six-week window: what Medway Council may do

   During the six weeks, the local planning authority can take one of three positions. It can take no action, which is the most common outcome for routine, proportionate maintenance on a healthy hedge. Once the six weeks expire without a response, the work described in the notice can go ahead.

   Alternatively, the council can serve a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) on the tree during the window. A TPO changes the position entirely: it gives the tree formal protection and you will then need a separate consent application before any work proceeds. Or it can tell you in writing that the work can go ahead. A section 211 notice is not an application for consent, so the council cannot refuse it or attach conditions to it. One point that catches people out: if you carry out the work before the six-week period closes, even if no TPO has been served and even if the work was otherwise reasonable, that is still an offence under section 211. The clock must run its full course.

5. If a TPO arrives during the wait: the consent application route

   A TPO served during the six-week period stops the work immediately. A separate Tree Works Application to Medway Council is then required; this is a different process from the section 211 notice, with its own application form and a different clock. Medway has eight weeks to determine a Tree Works Application. An unreasonable refusal can be appealed to the Planning Inspectorate. The council weighs the amenity value of the tree against the reasons given for the work, and can grant consent with or without conditions.

   If you are buying a property inside a conservation area and the boundary hedge is a large, established one, it is worth asking the seller and checking the council's online TPO register before exchange. Discovering a TPO after completion, and after the contractor has already been booked, is an avoidable problem. Our neighbour hedge law guide explains how TPOs interact with boundary disputes and self-help cutting rights more broadly.

6. Six weeks clear: work day, with the nesting season still in force

   Once the notice period passes without a TPO, the work can proceed as described in the notice. At this point the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1, becomes the operative constraint. Under that Act it is a criminal offence to intentionally or recklessly damage or destroy a wild bird's nest while it is in use or being built. The Act sets no calendar dates, but RSPB and GOV.UK guidance is to avoid hedge and tree cutting from 1 March to 31 August. On conviction the penalty can be a fine, up to six months in prison, or both, counted per nest, and "the council cleared the paperwork" does not constitute a defence against a nesting charge. Both sets of rules run in parallel and independently of each other.

   The practical consequence: a section 211 notice filed in, say, February needs the six weeks to expire before the end of the winter cutting window. File it too late and you may run out of window before 1 March closes the season for the summer. If that happens, the next honest opportunity is after 1 September, once the nesting closure lifts. We plan notice-filing dates against both clocks as a matter of routine on every conservation area job.

7. Exemptions: dead or dangerous trees

   Section 211 has limited exemptions. GOV.UK guidance says a dead tree needs five working days' prior written notice to the council before the work, and that where a tree presents an immediate risk of serious harm and the work is urgent, written notice is required as soon as practicable after the work becomes necessary. Only as much work as is needed to remove the hazard should be done. Cutting down a tree because it is inconveniently large, or because it is shading the garden, does not qualify; the exemption is narrow and councils are familiar with the distinction.

   If you believe a tree in a conservation area presents an immediate structural risk, document the condition with photographs before any work takes place and keep the record, because it may matter if the council queries the decision to proceed without the six-week notice. If you are unsure whether an exemption applies, ask Medway Council before cutting.

Sources: Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 211; Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990; Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1; Medway Council conservation area designation information and planning guidance; GOV.UK guidance on Tree Preservation Orders and trees in conservation areas..