Tree work prosecutions: what regulators published
Where the tree work regulators of the United Kingdom, Ireland, New South Wales and New Zealand publish prosecutions, with a table of what each country page holds.
Checked against the sources at the bottom of this page on October 8, 2026. Rules, fees and pay change: the source has the last word.
This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. This page points to the prosecutions that tree work regulators publish and shows, country by country, where each regulator lists them. The country pages hold the entries: the date, the court, the breach as the regulator's release states it and the outcome. A firm is named only in the regulator's own words, and the names of injured people are left out. Entries are as released on the dates shown, and the page does not follow appeals.
Where each regulator publishes
| Country | Regulator and its list | Entries on the country page |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | Health and Safety Executive: press centre prosecution category | 2 releases, December 2025 and May 2026 |
| New South Wales | SafeWork NSW: media releases and prosecution summaries | 4 releases, 2017 to 2026 |
| New Zealand | WorkSafe New Zealand: media releases and court summaries | 5 entries, 2015 to 2024 |
| United States | OSHA publishes citations by establishment in its enforcement database | Not read |
| Canada | WorkSafeBC publishes administrative penalties (fines on employers) in a searchable database; the Crown prosecution route is not read | None: the database needs a search form, which was not submitted, so no tree work penalty is listed |
| Ireland | Health and Safety Authority: prosecutions index, year pages 2005 to 2018 | 2 entries, 2016 and 2018 |
How the four country pages differ
The four lists are not equal. The HSE press centre held 205 prosecution releases on October 8, 2026, going back to October 13, 2021, and two of them concern tree work. SafeWork NSW's releases for tree work go back to 2017 in the entries read here. WorkSafe New Zealand's entries read here run from 2015 to 2024. A country with few rows here does not mean a regulator took few cases. It means few were found in the lists that were read on October 8, 2026.
Breaches that recur in the releases
Read together, the releases name a small set of failures. Work at height and rescue are in the December 2025 HSE release. Overhead lines are in the May 2026 HSE release and the 2019 WorkSafe powerline release. Chipper and firewood machine guarding are in the Treescape and Davies Tree Service entries. Exclusion zones for felling are in the SafeWork NSW and WorkSafe forestry entries. The country pages give the wording, and the guides on power line rules and chippers and stump grinders give what the regulators say about those hazards outside prosecutions.
To correct or remove an entry, write to the address at the foot of this page.
Prosecutions, country by country
Sources
- Health and Safety Executive, media centre prosecution category, read October 8, 2026
- SafeWork NSW, prosecutions page, read October 8, 2026
- WorkSafe New Zealand, court summaries of prosecutions, read October 8, 2026
- Health and Safety Authority, prosecutions index, read October 8, 2026
- WorkSafeBC, penalties page, read October 8, 2026