← All guides · Safety & law · October 2026

Cutting a hedge near overhead lines in Gravesend: what the electricity regulations require before any blade goes near a live cable.

Many gardens and street boundaries across Gravesend, Northfleet and the surrounding DA11 and DA12 postcodes sit below or alongside overhead electricity lines. The usual conservation-area and neighbour-law checks still apply when you plan hedge work, but any line carrying live current adds a separate set of duties under the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 that have nothing to do with planning and everything to do with the cable above the hedge. Getting those duties wrong is a criminal offence under health and safety law, regardless of whose property the hedge is on.

What the law says

Three pieces of legislation bear directly on hedge work near overhead power lines in England.

The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 (SI 1989/635) create a duty not to work on or near a live conductor unless it has been made dead and proved dead, isolated from every source of electrical energy, or, where it is unreasonable in all circumstances to make it dead, suitable precautions have been taken to prevent injury. Regulation 14 sets this out in full. Regulation 15 adds that where work requires technical knowledge or experience to carry out safely, it must only be carried out by someone who possesses that knowledge and experience, or who is under adequate supervision from someone who does. Trimming a hedge whose canopy reaches or approaches a live overhead cable falls within the Regulations: the cable does not need to be touched directly for a risk to exist, because electricity can arc across an air gap at high voltage.

The Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 3, places a duty on anyone conducting an undertaking to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that persons not in their employment are not exposed to risks arising from that undertaking. A householder trimming their own hedge and a contractor trimming someone else's both carry a duty that extends to third parties who could be harmed.

The Electricity Act 1989, Schedule 4, paragraph 9, gives the licensed distribution network operator a statutory right to cut down and lop trees, hedges and other vegetation that obstruct or interfere with their lines, without requiring the landowner's consent, and to remove the cuttings. In Gravesend and the rest of the DA11 and DA12 area, the distribution network operator is UK Power Networks, South East distribution area. This statutory right means UK Power Networks can act on vegetation growing into their lines whether or not you ask them to. If your hedge has grown into or close to their overhead network, they may trim it on their own schedule.

The HSE's guidance document GS6, "Avoidance of danger from overhead electric power lines", confirms that safe clearance distances are not a single universal figure: they vary by line voltage and must be confirmed with the distribution network operator for the specific line in question. The HSE's guidance page on overhead power lines directs those planning work near lines to contact the Distribution Network Operator (DNO) first, and to follow the requirements of the Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 throughout.

Before any hedge work near an overhead line: six pre-start checks

1. Look up and identify every cable. Before touching the hedge, walk the full length of it and identify every cable passing over or alongside it. Note poles, stay-wires (the diagonal metal wires running from a pole to the ground at an angle), and any cable attached to the side of the house directly from a pole. Stay-wires are structural parts of the electrical installation and must not be struck by machinery or cut.
2. Identify the cable type. Overhead cables near residential property generally fall into two groups: power distribution lines operated by UK Power Networks, and telecommunications cables operated by BT Openreach, Virgin Media or another provider. Power lines typically run on taller wooden poles and may carry several cables at once. Telecom cables are thinner and often run lower, sometimes looping between the power pole and a junction box. If you cannot tell which is which from the ground, treat every overhead cable as live electrical supply until confirmed otherwise.
3. Contact UK Power Networks before work starts. If any part of the hedge, or any tool or item of equipment used to trim it, would come within the clearance distance for that line, contact UK Power Networks before any work begins. The national emergency number for power cuts and electrical danger is 105 (routes directly to UK Power Networks in the South East). For planned pre-work enquiries about safe working near lines, UK Power Networks' non-emergency contact and notification form are available on their website (ukpowernetworks.co.uk). They will confirm the voltage of the line and can advise the safe clearance distance for your specific situation. If the work cannot be done safely with the line live, they can arrange a planned temporary disconnection.
4. Do not use long-reach tools without UKPN clearance. Long-handled hedge trimmers, extendable pruning poles and high-reach boom-mounted cutters each reduce the effective clearance between the operator and the line. A tool that looks comfortably short of the cable at rest can close that gap quickly when raised, swung or driven. Unless UK Power Networks has confirmed the work safe for the specific tool and approach you are using, keep all equipment well short of the clearance distance they advise.
5. Never assume a line is dead. An overhead cable that is not sparking or humming is not necessarily safe. Low-voltage residential supply cables can carry enough current to kill, and switching on the street is not something the householder controls. The only safe working assumption is that every overhead cable is live unless UK Power Networks has confirmed in writing that the relevant section has been isolated and proved dead.
6. Mechanical and vehicle-mounted cutters: check for poles and stays. If you or a contractor are using a tractor-mounted flail, a vehicle-mounted reaching arm, or any mechanical cutter on a boom, survey the full hedge run from the ground before moving equipment near it. The sweep of a flail head or a boom in motion covers more ground than its rest position suggests, and a collision with a stay-wire can bring down a pole, with consequences for the entire street supply.

When UK Power Networks trims the hedge

Under Schedule 4 of the Electricity Act 1989, UK Power Networks does not need to seek permission before trimming vegetation that is interfering with their lines. In practice, they often give notice before a planned vegetation management programme, and they engage contractors to carry out the work across their South East network on a rolling schedule. If UKPN or one of their contractors trims a hedge on your boundary, they may cut back further than a routine trim would suggest, because their obligation is to maintain safe clearances for the network, not to achieve a particular garden aesthetic.

If you want to avoid UKPN acting without prior consultation, the most effective approach is to keep hedge growth proactively clear of their lines. A hedge that has not yet reached the line does not trigger their right to cut. A hedge that is growing toward the line but has not yet interfered with it can still be the subject of a notification from UKPN asking you to trim it back within a set period, because their statutory power extends to vegetation that could reasonably be expected to interfere with their lines in due course.

Telecom cables: a different standard

BT Openreach, Virgin Media and other telecoms providers' aerial drop cables carry signal voltages, not mains electrical supply. The electrical risk from cutting one is far lower than from a power line. That said, severing an aerial telecom cable is likely to constitute criminal damage under the Criminal Damage Act 1971, will disrupt service to the property concerned and may affect neighbours sharing the same distribution point, and could expose the person responsible to a civil claim. Contact BT Openreach or the relevant provider before any work that could reach their cables, and note that telecoms cables can run below power cables on the same pole, so confirming one type does not clear you on the other.

Sources: Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 (SI 1989/635), regulations 14 and 15 (legislation.gov.uk); Electricity Act 1989, Schedule 4, paragraph 9 (legislation.gov.uk); Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, section 3; HSE, "Overhead power lines" (hse.gov.uk); HSE, Guidance document GS6 "Avoidance of danger from overhead electric power lines"; UK Power Networks, "Cut trees and bushes" (ukpowernetworks.co.uk); Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1; Criminal Damage Act 1971.