Gravesham's 23 conservation areas, and the section 211 six-week notice.
Gravesham Borough Council lists 23 separate conservation areas across the borough, from Darnley Road and Harmer Street in Gravesend town centre to Higham, Shorne, Cobham and the three Meopham CAs out towards the Weald. If your address falls inside one, there is a specific legal step before certain tree work, and it has nothing to do with planning permission for the work itself.
What the law actually says
Trees in a conservation area that are not already covered by a Tree Preservation Order are protected by section 211 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990. It does not ban the work. It requires you to notify Gravesham Borough Council six weeks before cutting down, topping, lopping, uprooting or wilfully damaging a tree with a trunk over 75mm in diameter, measured 1.5 metres above ground level. There is no fee for submitting the notice. Doing the work without notice is an offence: GOV.UK gives a fine of up to £20,000 in the magistrates' court and an unlimited fine in serious Crown Court cases.
Does this apply to my hedge?
Section 211 covers trees, not clipped ornamental hedging in the everyday sense. A row of tightly maintained privet or leylandii kept as a hedge is not what the notice is aimed at. But a hedge that has been let grow up into individual tree-form specimens, tall overgrown laurel or leylandii with trunks over 75mm, can fall inside it, and a genuine boundary tree (oak, ash, sycamore, field maple) inside a CA always does, regardless of whether it sits in a hedgerow line.
What happens after you give notice
Once the six-week notice is submitted, Gravesham can respond in one of three ways:
- Make a Tree Preservation Order if the tree is judged worth protecting in the interests of amenity, usually decided within the six weeks.
- Confirm they will not make an Order and tell you the work can proceed straight away.
- Say nothing and let the six weeks run out, after which the proposed work can go ahead, and you then have two years from the date of the notice to carry it out before you would need to notify again.
If the tree is dead but not immediately dangerous, the notice period drops to five working days, given by email to the council's planning admin team rather than the standard form, with evidence that the tree is dead. If a tree is an immediate danger, urgent work can go ahead without waiting, and the council should be told in writing as soon as practicable afterwards. If a tree is removed because it is dead or dangerous, a replacement tree has to be planted.
Where this actually bites in Gravesham
Most of the historic core of Gravesend and Northfleet sits inside a CA: Darnley Road, Harmer Street, King Street, Milton Place, Overcliffe, Pelham Road and The Avenue, Queen Street, Lansdowne Square and The Hill in Northfleet, plus Windmill Hill on the exposed north side of town. Out towards the borough edge, Higham (Church Street and Lower Higham), Shorne (plus Queens Farm and Thong), Cobham and the three Meopham conservation areas cover the village centres. A mature tree on a boundary line in any of these needs the notice before it comes down or gets significantly reduced, even on a private domestic garden.
What I handle for you
If your address is in one of Gravesham's 23 conservation areas and the job involves a genuine tree rather than clipped hedge maintenance, I check the CA boundary against your address before quoting, file the section 211 notice on your behalf where it is needed, and build the six-week window into the schedule honestly rather than promising a date I cannot keep. Routine hedge trimming, the kind that keeps a boundary hedge at a maintained height, does not need this notice regardless of CA status.
Ready to give notice? See the step-by-step application guide with the council links, the size test and a sample notice.
Not sure if your tree or hedge needs a notice?
Send a photo and your postcode to hello@gravesendhedges.co.uk or 07763 100 477. I'll check the CA boundary and tell you honestly whether section 211 applies before any work is booked.
Sources: Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 211; Gravesham Borough Council, "Protected trees and woodland"; GOV.UK, "Tree Preservation Orders and trees in conservation areas."