← All guides · Rules & paperwork · Updated October 2026

The six-week notice every Canterbury hedge job ought to consider.

If your garden sits inside one of Canterbury City Council's 97 conservation areas, the conservation-area rules pick up where ordinary garden law leaves off. Most of central Canterbury is covered. Most homeowners don't know it. Here's the short version of what it actually means for hedge work, and the much shorter list of what it doesn't.

Conservation areas have been part of English planning law since the Civic Amenities Act 1967. They protect the character of an area, not just individual buildings, which is why the rules reach trees as well as bricks. Canterbury City Council says its district has 97 of them, covering parts of the city centre and the historic cores of many villages.

If you are not sure whether you are inside one, the council’s conservation areas page and its planning constraints map are the authoritative answer. Search your address. If it falls inside a coloured area, you are in one. Check the plot itself, not just the street.

The actual rule, in plain English

Inside a conservation area, you have to give Canterbury City Council six weeks' written notice before you can prune, lop, top, or fell any tree with a stem over 75mm in diameter measured at 1.5 metres from the ground. This is set out in section 211 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, hence the "s.211 notice" you'll see contractors mention.

The council has six weeks from the date of your notice to make a Tree Preservation Order if it thinks the tree merits one, to tell you it will not, or to do nothing. If it makes an Order, you then need a separate consent application. If it makes no Order, the six weeks end and you can do the work described in the notice within two years.

What's exempt

Plenty, actually. The list of exemptions is what makes most routine hedge cutting in Canterbury fall outside the rule.

• Hedges and shrubs. GOV.UK says orders and notices apply to things that are ordinarily termed trees, which would not normally include shrubs. Routine clipping of a privet, laurel, leylandii, thuja or holly hedge is not what the notice is for. The exception is trees in a hedge, or an old hedge that has grown into a line of trees of reasonable height, which can be treated as trees.
• Stems under 75mm. Young hedges, formative cuts, anything where the largest individual stem is below the threshold.
• Dead or dangerous trees. A dead tree needs five working days’ written notice to the council before the work. Urgent work on a tree that presents an immediate risk of serious harm can go ahead at once, with written notice as soon as practicable afterwards. A tree that is merely dying or diseased still needs the normal notice.
• Fruit trees cultivated for fruit. Pruning a tree cultivated for fruit in line with good horticultural practice does not need a notice. The minute it stops being kept as a fruit tree, that no longer applies.

What this means in practice for most Canterbury hedge jobs: the notice does not apply. A routine privet, laurel, beech, hornbeam, yew or leylandii hedge cut in a conservation area is normally not caught. The notice catches the awkward cases: the holly that has grown into a tree within an old hedge, or the mature oak standing in the corner of a Victorian garden.

The hidden traps

Three things catch people out.

Mature standards inside a hedge line. Many old hedges have one or two big trees grown up within them. Holly, yew, beech, occasionally hornbeam. They look like part of the hedge but they are individual trees over the 75mm threshold. Reduce one of those as part of a hedge cut without filing a notice and you may have committed an offence, even though the rest of the hedge is not caught. The fine on conviction is up to £20,000 in a magistrates’ court, and unlimited in the Crown Court.

TPO trees mixed into hedges. Separate from conservation areas, individual TPOs can apply anywhere in the district. If a hedge line includes a protected tree, that tree needs the council’s written consent (not just a notice), and the rest of the hedge work has to be planned around it.

Listed building curtilage. If the property is listed, walls, gates and other structures within its curtilage may be treated as part of the listing. Changing a wall or boundary structure there can need listed building consent, so ask the council first. Trimming a hedge does not.

How we handle it

Before we quote any conservation-area job, we check three things:

1. The council’s map: is the property inside a conservation area, and is any tree on the plot protected by a TPO?
2. The hedge line, any stems over 75mm at chest height that would need a notice?
3. The property: is it listed? Any wall, gate or railing work would need separate advice.

If a notice is needed, we can prepare it for you. A notice does not have to be in any set form, but it must describe the work and identify each tree, so we attach a description of the work, a sketch plan and photographs. There is no fee. Then the six weeks run, and the work goes ahead as described.

If TPO consent is needed, that is a longer process: the council has eight weeks to decide, and you cannot start until you have the written decision. We will tell you that in the quote so you can decide whether to proceed.

Ready to file? Our step-by-step guide to getting permission for tree work in a Canterbury conservation area walks through the address check, the size test, what to write and where to send the notice.

Sources: GOV.UK, Tree Preservation Orders and trees in conservation areas; Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 211; Canterbury City Council conservation areas and planning pages. Checked 12 October 2026.