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Ash dieback in a Gravesend hedge: the TPO, conservation area and felling licence checks before any work starts

Ash is one of the most common standard trees in native Gravesham hedgerows. Ash is a familiar standard tree in the hedgerows around Higham, Chalk, Shorne, Cobham and Meopham. Since ash dieback (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus, the fungus formerly called Chalara fraxinea) established itself across Kent in the early 2010s, a growing number of those trees now show the characteristic diamond-shaped stem lesions, wilting leaflets, blackened buds and progressive crown dieback that signal infection. When someone asks me about a standard ash in a Gravesend or Gravesham hedge, the first question is never simply "is this tree sick?" The first question is: what checks and notices are legally required before any felling starts?

What the law says

Four separate legal regimes can apply to a dying or dead ash in a Gravesend hedge, and they run in parallel. Meeting one does not discharge the obligations under the others.

Tree Preservation Orders: Town and Country Planning Act 1990, sections 198–214

A Tree Preservation Order (TPO) makes it a criminal offence to cut down, uproot, top, lop, willfully damage or willfully destroy a protected tree without the written consent of the local planning authority, in this case Gravesham Borough Council. The prohibition applies regardless of the tree's condition: a dying ash under a TPO cannot lawfully be felled without following the correct procedure, with one important qualification.

The Town and Country Planning (Tree Preservation) (England) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/605), Regulation 14 provides exemptions for a tree that is dead, and for urgent work needed to remove an immediate risk of serious harm. For a dead tree, the person proposing the work must give Gravesham Borough Council at least five working days' written notice before starting. For an immediate risk of serious harm, notice must follow as soon as practicable after the work becomes necessary. The notice should include the tree's location, its condition and the proposed works, supported by photographs and, where possible, a report from a qualified arborist. The onus is on the landowner to demonstrate the exemption applied: keep all evidence. A tree that is dying or diseased but not yet dead is not covered by the dead-tree exemption, and a full application for consent is the route to use.

Felling a TPO tree without consent or a valid exemption carries a fine of up to £20,000 in the magistrates' court, and an unlimited fine in serious cases in the Crown Court.

Conservation area notification: Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 211

Gravesham has 23 designated conservation areas, covering much of historic Gravesend town centre, Northfleet, and several of the surrounding villages. Any tree in a conservation area with a stem diameter exceeding 75mm at 1.5 metres from the ground is subject to the section 211 notification requirement: six weeks' written notice must be given to Gravesham Borough Council before any cutting down, uprooting, topping or lopping. The council can use that six-week period to decide whether to make a TPO protecting the tree, at which point the TPO regime above takes over.

Section 211 also has a narrow exemption: a dead tree needs five working days' written notice instead of six weeks, and urgent work to remove an immediate risk of serious harm can go ahead with notice as soon as practicable afterwards. Whether a tree is dead is a matter of fact, and a tree with active ash dieback that still carries some live material is unlikely to be considered dead. In any case involving a conservation area ash, contacting Gravesham's tree officer before work starts is the practical step that avoids an inadvertent offence. They can confirm whether the exemption applies and whether a TPO needs to be made.

Hedgerow Regulations 1997: qualifying hedgerow notification

If the ash to be removed forms part of a qualifying rural hedgerow under the Hedgerow Regulations 1997, a 42-day notification to Gravesham Borough Council is required before the hedgerow or any part of it can be removed. A hedgerow is protected if it is more than 20 metres long (or shorter but meeting another hedgerow at each end) and is on or next to agricultural, forestry, horse-keeping, common, village green, SSSI, nature reserve or state land. A hedge in, or marking the boundary of, a private garden is not covered. The 30-year age test applies to whether a protected hedgerow is "important". The notification is required even where only a single standard tree within the hedgerow is being removed, if that removal amounts to hedgerow removal in practice.

Regulation 6 of the Hedgerow Regulations provides a limited exemption for work required to comply with a statutory plant health notice or forestry health notice served under plant health legislation. That exemption applies only where a notice has actually been served by the relevant authority: it does not cover precautionary removal of an infected ash carried out without such a notice being in place. In practice, most garden boundary hedges fall outside the Hedgerow Regulations entirely because they are within a dwelling curtilage. For field boundary hedges, farm hedgerows and any hedgerow outside a residential garden, the 42-day notification requirement should be assumed to apply until it can be confirmed otherwise.

Forestry Act 1967: felling licence

Section 9 of the Forestry Act 1967 requires a felling licence from the Forestry Commission before felling any tree that does not fall within a recognised exemption. Relevant exemptions include trees in a garden, orchard, churchyard or designated open space, and dead trees. For the majority of residential garden hedgerows in Gravesend, the garden exemption applies and no separate felling licence is needed. For hedgerow ash on agricultural land or farm boundaries in the Gravesham villages, the exemption position is less straightforward, and checking with the Forestry Commission before felling is the correct step. Importantly, the felling licence regime and the TPO/section 211 regime are separate: a felling licence does not override the need for TPO consent, and TPO consent does not substitute for a felling licence where one is required.

The four checks: a decision order before any felling

Check 1: is the ash covered by a TPO?

Search Gravesham Borough Council's interactive map of protected trees (available via the planning portal on the council's website) for the location of the ash. If a TPO is in force, either apply for consent or, if the tree is actually dead, prepare the five-working-day written notice with supporting evidence before any cutting starts. Do not rely on the dead-tree exemption without making contact with the council's tree officer first: a disputed exemption can result in enforcement action even if the tree is subsequently confirmed dead.

Check 2: is the ash in a conservation area?

Check the conservation area map on Gravesham Borough Council's website. If the ash is within a designated conservation area and has a stem over 75mm, submit the section 211 notification and allow the six-week period to expire (or obtain the council's written confirmation that they will not make a TPO) before work proceeds. For a tree that appears clearly dead, contact the tree officer first to confirm whether the dead-tree exemption applies in their view before relying on it.

Check 3: does the Hedgerow Regulations notification apply?

Confirm whether the hedge is more than 20 metres long (or meets another hedgerow at each end) and is on or next to farmland, forestry, horse-keeping land or the other qualifying land types, rather than in or on the boundary of a private garden. If so, submit the hedgerow removal notification to Gravesham Borough Council and wait for the 42-day period to expire, or for written confirmation that the removal is not objected to, before work begins. For farm or field boundary hedges in Higham, Chalk, Shorne, Cobham or Meopham, this check matters: the Gravesham countryside carries a significant stock of qualifying hedgerows, and ash is a frequent component of them.

Check 4: is a Forestry Act felling licence needed?

For residential garden hedgerows in Gravesend, the garden exemption under the Forestry Act 1967 generally covers the felling. For hedgerow ash in a non-residential or agricultural setting, check with Forestry England's woodland management team before felling. The felling licence application and consultation processes take time, so factor this in at the start of planning rather than treating it as an afterthought.

Diseased but not yet dead: the timing trap with ash dieback

Ash dieback progresses over several years. A tree showing early-stage lesions and partial crown dieback in October 2026 may still be alive and retain enough healthy crown to be outside the dead-tree exemptions under both the TPO Regulations and section 211. Waiting until the tree is visibly and completely dead before acting may mean living alongside a structurally compromised tree for another season or more. The better approach is to make a full consent application to Gravesham Borough Council at the point when significant dieback is apparent, rather than waiting for a clear-cut dead status that may never present cleanly. An application on the basis of an infected and progressively dying tree, supported by an arborist's report, is a legitimate route, and it avoids relying on the dead-tree exemption for a tree that is not yet dead.

Nesting season: the parallel check that runs alongside all four

Completing the TPO, conservation area, Hedgerow Regulations and felling licence checks does not discharge the nesting season duty under section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981. An ash felling consented in January for a February start date still cannot proceed if an active bird's nest is present in the tree. The Act sets no calendar dates; the usual lower-risk window for tree work is 1 September to 28 February. If work is planned between 1 March and 31 August, a check for active nests must be completed immediately before any cutting starts, and work must stop if an active nest is found. The penalty is a fine (unlimited in England and Wales) or up to six months in prison, or both. The consents do not override this: both the legal permission to fell and the absence of an active nest must be confirmed before a chainsaw starts.

Ash dieback in Gravesend and Gravesham: what to look for

Ash dieback is caused by the fungus Hymenoscyphus fraxineus (formerly known as Chalara fraxinea), which is native to eastern Asia and arrived in the UK via infected nursery stock from continental Europe. It was first confirmed in England in 2012 and is now established across Kent. Forest Research, the UK's government forestry science agency, identifies the following as the principal symptoms on affected trees:

Leaf spots and foliar necrosis: small spots on leaflets that enlarge and kill leaf tissue, often causing the leaf to curl and blacken before dropping earlier than healthy ash foliage.
Blackened buds: infected buds fail to open or produce stunted, distorted growth. Blackened ash buds in late spring, when healthy ash should be flushing, are a key indicator.
Diamond-shaped lesions on stems and branches: where the fungus has penetrated the bark, it produces characteristic elongated diamond lesions. These are most visible on smaller branches and young stems but can appear on the main stem of established trees.
Crown dieback, starting from the outer shoots inward: progressive die-back of the outer canopy, with epicormic regrowth appearing on the main stem and major branches as the tree attempts to compensate. Dense clusters of small shoots low on the trunk are a common late-stage symptom.
Brown internal staining: when a branch is cut, infected tissue shows a characteristic brown staining of the wood beneath the bark, visible on the cut face.

It is worth noting that ash is the last native species to flush in spring: a bare-budded ash in late April or early May is not necessarily infected. Ash typically leafs out two to three weeks after oak. Dieback and foliar necrosis in the summer months, and buds that fail to open at all in late spring, are the more reliable indicators. The disease is established across Kent, so mature hedgerow ash in this area should be expected to show it sooner or later.

There is currently no cure for ash dieback. Forest Research's guidance is that the disease cannot be stopped by chemical treatment: management consists of confirming infection, monitoring progression, and planning felling at a time when the tree's structural integrity is still adequate for safe removal. A heavily infected ash with significant crown dieback is more likely to drop branches without warning and is harder to fell safely than a tree tackled earlier in the disease progression. That is a reason not to leave a badly affected ash standing next to a path, road or building.

Infected material: movement and disposal

Ash dieback spores travel on the wind, so moving logs or chippings does little to change the spread, but infected ash material is still best handled with care. Before agreeing a disposal route, check with your waste carrier and the Forestry Commission's current guidance on ash dieback material, and keep the paperwork for any waste that leaves the site.

For replacement planting after an infected ash is removed, use native species that suit the site rather than replanting ash: field maple (Acer campestre), hazel (Corylus avellana), hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna) and blackthorn (Prunus spinosa) all suit most hedgerow settings and provide comparable wildlife and boundary value to a lost ash standard.

Related guides

Infected ash in your Gravesend hedge? Let me take a look first.

The four checks above take longer than most people expect, particularly if a TPO or conservation area complicates the picture. Gravesham says it aims to decide tree work applications within 8 weeks. If you are not sure where to start, send me a description and a photograph and I can tell you which checks are likely to apply before you spend time on an application you may not need, or miss one you do. 07763 100 477 or hello@gravesendhedges.co.uk.

Sources: Forest Research, Ash dieback (Hymenoscyphus fraxineus), forestresearch.gov.uk; Town and Country Planning Act 1990, sections 198–214 and section 211; Town and Country Planning (Tree Preservation) (England) Regulations 2012 (SI 2012/605), Regulation 14; Hedgerow Regulations 1997 (SI 1997/1160); Forestry Act 1967, section 9; Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1.