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Tree Preservation Order check: protected trees and your project

Permitted development gives no right to cut down, top, lop, uproot or damage a protected tree. If a tree has a Tree Preservation Order, you need the council's written consent first (Tree Preservation (England) Regulations 2012 reg 13). In a conservation area, you normally have to give the council six weeks' notice before such work on a tree without an Order (TCPA 1990 s211). Our check finds the TPO records your council publishes and says when it publishes none.
What are you planning?

Free. England only. Next you tap your home on the map, so we test your plot outline, not the postcode.

What a Tree Preservation Order prohibits

Unless an exception applies, no person may cut down, top, lop, uproot, wilfully damage or wilfully destroy a tree covered by an Order, or cause or permit any of those, except with the written consent of the council and in line with any conditions it sets (reg 13).

Why permitted development is not an exception

Regulation 14 lists the exceptions. One covers work needed to carry out a planning permission, but it expressly leaves out outline permission and permission given by or under the General Permitted Development Order, apart from one case for statutory undertakers (reg 14(1)(a)(vii)). The published text still names the 1995 version of that Order. In practice, do not treat a permitted development extension or outbuilding as consent for tree work: if building it means removing or cutting back a protected tree, ask the council for consent first.

Trees in conservation areas

A tree in a conservation area that has no Order is still protected by section 211 (TCPA 1990 s211). Before doing work that an Order would prohibit, you give the council notice. You then have a defence if the council consents, or if you do the work after six weeks from the date of the notice and before two years from that date.

Some small trees are exempt from the notice rule. Section 211 does not apply to cutting down, uprooting, topping or lopping a tree whose diameter is no more than 75 mm, or to cutting down or uprooting one of no more than 100 mm where the only purpose is to improve the growth of other trees. The diameter is measured over the bark, 1.5 m above natural ground level (reg 15). Work within the regulation 14 exceptions is also outside section 211.

See our conservation area check to find out whether your plot is in one.

How we check

You confirm the HM Land Registry title outline under your tap, and we look for two kinds of council record within 15 m of it: Tree Preservation Order areas, and individual protected trees. We report records on the plot separately from records nearby. Where the council publishes one kind but not the other, we say which. Where it publishes neither, the result is "not published by the council": not checked, never "no TPO". See how we check.

How many councils publish TPO data

In our own sample of 300 random English postcodes on 18 October 2026:

  • 88 (29.3%, plus or minus 5.2 percentage points at 95% confidence) were in a council area that publishes TPO areas.
  • 75 (25.0%, plus or minus 4.9 points) were in one that publishes individual protected trees.
  • 90 (30.0%, plus or minus 5.2 points) were in one that publishes either.
  • 181 (60.3%, plus or minus 5.5 points) were in one that publishes neither Article 4 areas nor TPO records.

Of the 310 planning authorities in our snapshot that day, 80 had a live TPO area feed, 75 a live individual tree feed, and 82 at least one of the two. For most of the sampled postcodes, then, the check could not see TPOs, so ask the council.

Before you start work near trees

  • Ask the council whether any tree on or next to your plot has an Order, especially if the council does not publish its records.
  • If one does, apply for consent before any tree work. Through the Planning Portal, the service charge band for tree applications is Band 0, which is £0 (Planning Portal service charges).
  • In a conservation area, give six weeks' notice for trees without an Order, unless an exemption applies.

What the free check tells you

The free check lists any TPO areas or protected trees your council records on or within 15 m of your plot, or tells you it publishes none. A protected tree does not change the permitted development headline for a project; it is flagged as a separate consent to get. Our guides to rear extensions and garden rooms cover the building limits.

For certainty: a Lawful Development Certificate

A Lawful Development Certificate deals with planning, not with consent for tree work. For the building itself, apply to your council for a certificate for proposed works (TCPA 1990 s192), and deal with any protected tree separately. See Lawful Development Certificates.