Please read the below before making an enquiry.
Please do not use this form for emergency and urgent matters. For matters of emergency, for example where there is a genuine and immediate risk to the public, please call 0191 278 7878
Trees are inspected cyclically by the Councils arboricultural team using recognised risk assessment methodology (THREATS) and tree work recommendations are made in line with the councils Tree Policy.
The City Council may undertake tree or hedge works in one of the following circumstances:
- As required to manage risk, in accordance with this Policy.
- To deliver its other strategic aims and objectives.
- As a necessary and normal part of its programme of service delivery.
- As part of normal maintenance on its own land and land it manages.
- As required to reduce or remove an actionable nuisance.
- Where a service request is made according to this Policy.
- Where discretionary intervention would control an adverse impact to which an occupier of adjacent land is particularly sensitive or vulnerable.
The City Council will avoid felling trees unless it is necessary. Trees will only be removed on Council land in one of the following circumstances:
- The tree is dead, dying, or dangerous. Decisions will be based on competent assessment by an arboriculturist.
- Dead – a tree with no live tissues present within the crown.
- Dying – a tree undergoing irreversible and imminent decline.
- Dangerous – a tree presenting an unacceptable risk of harm that cannot be mitigated or made acceptable by other means.
- The removal of the tree will benefit the development of neighbouring trees and will maintain or improve a sustainable tree population e.g. woodland thinning.
- The tree is, in the view of an arboriculturist, of a size and/or species that is unsuitable for its location.
- Where pruning is not a reasonable means of reducing or removing a nuisance.
- The tree is proven to have caused significant structural damage, such as by subsidence, and that removal will mitigate further damage.
- Where tree removal is unavoidable, in order to deliver other City Council services and objectives, where the benefits clearly outweigh the loss of the tree.
- Tree removal where it is the only practical means of complying with a statutory duty.
The Council is unlikely to carry out works for the following reasons:
- Shade casting/reduced light to properties
- Effects on TV or satellite reception
- Obstruction of views
- Obstruction of or contact with telephone lines
- Interference with other vegetation
- Minor or seasonal nuisances
- Perceived risk and ‘worry’
- Aphid excretion (honeydew)
- Bird droppings
- Algae, lichen or moss growth (typically associated with shade)
- Leaf, fruit, twig or flower shedding
- Germinating seedlings in gardens
- Aesthetic preference or opinion (‘untidiness’)
Telephone lines
- The council has no duty to prune trees where they are interfering with telephone wires. Under the Communications Act 2003 (S 82) a communications provider has the right to cut or lop any tree which is causing interference or obstruction to their apparatus. These works would be carried out by your service provider.
Private trees
- The Council has no duty to remove or prune private trees, but we do possess the power to do so in certain circumstances under the Miscellaneous Provisions Act 1976. Under the act, the Council can intervene only if the following conditions are met:
- The tree is in such a condition that it seems likely that failure could occur.
- The level of risk posed by the tree is deemed to be actionable.
- Primarily, making safe a dangerous tree should be the responsibility of the landowner and in the first instance, the tree owner should be contacted, however, please be aware the owner of the trees does not have any duty to prune or remove trees which are not posing a reasonably foreseeable risk to persons or property.
