Tree rules in Hammersmith and Fulham: preservation orders and conservation areas

This page reports what the official source says. It is not legal advice: ask the office named here. It describes three Hammersmith and Fulham documents as read on October 8, 2026: the trees and tree preservation orders page, the page on trees in public places with its street tree maintenance policy statement, and the Tree Strategy 2025 to 2030. The national rules, including the time limits in the England regulations, are on the guide to checking tree rules with UK councils. This page covers only what this borough's documents add.

Preservation orders and conservation areas

The planning page says the council has a duty to protect trees in the borough and that orders make it an offence to remove, prune or damage a protected tree even on private land. To find out whether a tree has an order, it points to a TPO list, a PDF of 724 KB, and gives a planning phone number for details of the trees affected and for copies of orders. Copies of TPOs cost £28 each, paid by card over the phone, and the page asks for no cheques or cash. The application for TPO tree works is a form that is downloaded after an address is entered on the page.

For a conservation area the page says six weeks' prior written notice is needed to prune or remove a tree on private land, and that this applies only to trees with a trunk diameter of 75 mm or more. It says the council then considers whether the work is acceptable or whether a TPO may be justified in the interests of amenity to stop it. A property search tool and a conservation areas page show whether an address is inside one. The tree strategy lists, as an action, updating the online records to include every TPO and conservation area.

Private trees and council trees

The public places page says trees on private land are the landowner's responsibility, and that for a dangerous private tree the council has the power to force the landowner to make it safe. Where growth from a private tree obstructs a public road or pavement, the page says the council asks the landowner to trim it. For damage from a council tree, it asks for the building insurer's opinion first and says the council then weighs the insurer's evidence.

The strategy puts the council's responsibility at over 27,000 trees in parks, housing estates, tenanted properties, cemeteries, council schools and on the public highway, and estimates 45,000 trees on private sites. It reports a canopy cover of 14 percent against a London average of 21 percent, with a target of 16.5 percent by 2030.

The street tree rules in the maintenance statement

This is the part particular to this borough. The statement says every street tree is inspected or maintained at least once every 3.5 years, and that larger trees such as London planes and limes near houses are pruned on a three year cycle. The criteria for ad-hoc pruning include branches lower than 2.3 m over a footpath or private garden, lower than 4.0 m over a carriageway and 5.0 m on a double-decker bus route, and branches within 1.0 m of a building. It lists the reasons a street tree should be removed: dead, dying, diseased or dangerous or interfering with the safe use of the highway, an approved highway scheme, or an insurance claim with evidence implicating the tree and no other practical step. The planting rules say a footpath should normally be at least 1.8 m wide and trees not less than 8 m apart. The page also says old street trees of up to 150 years are kept by regular pruning and replaced during new planting schemes.

Sources

• London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Trees and tree preservation orders, read October 8, 2026
• London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Trees in public places and street tree maintenance policy statement, read October 8, 2026
• London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, Tree Strategy 2025 to 2030 (PDF), read October 8, 2026