The six-week notice every Thanet hedge job ought to consider.
If your garden sits inside one of Thanet District Council's conservation areas, the CA rules pick up where ordinary garden law leaves off. Most of central Margate, Cliftonville, Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Westgate and Birchington is covered. Most homeowners don't know it. Here's the short version of what it actually means for hedge work — and the shorter list of what it doesn't.
Conservation areas have been part of English planning law since the Civic Amenities Act 1967. They protect the look and feel of an area, not just individual listed buildings — which is why the rules sweep up trees as well as bricks. Thanet District Council looks after a distinctive cluster of CAs across the Isle:
- Margate Old Town and Seafront — the historic core around the harbour and the seafront belt down to Cliftonville.
- Cliftonville — eight CAs, all 2016 appraisals: Dalby Square, Clifton Place / Grotto Gardens, Cliftonville Clifftop, Edgar Rd / Sweyn Rd, Ethelbert Rd / Athelstan Rd, Norfolk Rd / Suffolk Rd, Northdown Rd. Dense Victorian villa and terrace stock, many now HMO under Article 4.
- Ramsgate town centre, plus Royal Esplanade and Montefiore.
- Broadstairs Old Town (2018 appraisal).
- Westgate-on-Sea — South, East and Extension (2006).
- Birchington Square — designated July 2024 (the newest on the roster).
- Minster-in-Thanet historic core.
Manston has no CA. The Westwood and Haine estates around the retail centre are largely outside the CA belt. If you're not sure whether you're inside one, Thanet District Council's mapping is the authoritative answer at thanet.gov.uk. If your address falls inside a coloured polygon, you're in.
The actual rule, in plain English
Inside a Thanet conservation area, you have to give Thanet District Council six weeks' written notice before you can prune, lop, top or fell any tree with a stem over 75mm in diameter measured at 1.5 metres from the ground. This is set out in section 211 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 — the "s.211 notice" contractors mention.
TDC has six weeks from the date they receive your notice to either do nothing (in which case the work can proceed) or to slap a formal Tree Preservation Order on the tree (in which case a separate consent application is needed). In practice, well over nine times out of ten on a routine hedge job, the six weeks pass without comment and the work goes ahead.
What does 75mm at 1.5m actually look like?
Roughly the diameter of a half-litre water bottle, measured chest height. So a thick holm oak or hawthorn standard grown into a hedge over decades almost certainly qualifies. A privet stem in the body of a young hedge almost certainly doesn't. Multiple stems in a single hedge — each measured separately at 1.5m — can collectively push you over the line. Always worth a tape measure before quoting.
What's exempt
Plenty, actually. The list of exemptions is what makes most routine hedge cutting in Thanet fall outside the rule.
- Hedging-species cutting. Trimming a privet, escallonia, euonymus, laurel, tamarix, hawthorn or Leylandii hedge — none of that needs a notice, even in a conservation area, even if the hedge is old and well-established. The rule targets trees. Hedge species doing the job of a hedge are exempt.
- Stems under 75mm. Young hedges, formative cuts, anything where the largest individual stem is below the threshold.
- Dead, dying or dangerous trees. A dead tree can come down without notice; urgent work on a dangerous one can happen without notice, though TDC expects to be told within five days afterwards.
- Fruit trees cultivated for fruit. A mature apple in your Cliftonville back garden, kept and pruned for the apples — exempt. The minute it stops being a productive fruit tree, it isn't.
What this means in practice for most Thanet hedge jobs: the notice doesn't apply. A routine privet, escallonia, euonymus, laurel, tamarix or Leylandii cut in a CA is normally exempt. The notice catches the awkward cases — the holm oak grown into a tree in an old Cliftonville front garden, the mature holly standing in the corner of a Broadstairs villa, the apple tree someone stopped picking from in 2012.
The Thanet-specific traps
Four things catch people out.
Mature standards inside a hedge line. A lot of older Thanet hedges — particularly in Cliftonville and Broadstairs Old Town — have one or two big trees grown up within them. Holly, holm oak, an inland yew standard, occasionally an old escallonia gone leggy. They look like part of the hedge but they're individual trees over the 75mm threshold. Reducing one as part of a hedge cut without a notice is technically an offence even though the rest of the hedge is exempt. Fine: up to £20,000 per tree on conviction.
TPO trees mixed into hedges. Separate to CAs, individual TPOs can apply anywhere in the district. They show up on TDC's mapping. If a hedge line includes a TPO tree, that tree needs full consent (not just a notice), and the rest of the hedge work has to be planned around it.
Listed building curtilage. If the property is listed (Grade I, II* or II), the garden walls, gates, gate piers and any structural features within the curtilage are also listed by default. Trimming the hedge: no consent needed. Changing the boundary type — replacing a hedge with a wall, or removing a wall to plant a hedge — needs Listed Building Consent. Ramsgate and Broadstairs old towns have substantial listed stock.
Article 4 HMO direction. Thanet's Article 4 direction removes the permitted-development right to convert a C3 dwellinghouse to a small C4 HMO without planning permission. This is district-wide. It pairs with Selective Licensing in Margate Central and Cliftonville West. Neither directly affects hedge work — but if you're a landlord converting or refurbishing under Article 4, the CA hedge frontage matters visually to a planning officer looking at the whole site. Get the hedge tidy before the application, not after.
The rural fringe: Hedgerow Regs 1997
Minster, Monkton, Acol, Sarre and the rural farmland fringe operate under different rules for field-boundary hedges. The Hedgerow Regulations 1997 govern removal (not routine cutting) of "important" rural hedgerows — the criteria are length (over 20m or connecting to another hedgerow), age (over 30 years), species composition, and historical or wildlife significance. Before removal you serve TDC a Hedgerow Removal Notice; they have 42 days to issue a Retention Notice preventing the work. Garden hedges within curtilage are unaffected — this is a field-boundary rule only.
How I handle it
Before quoting any Thanet CA or rural fringe job, I check three things:
- TDC's mapping — is the property inside a CA polygon, and are there any individual TPOs on the plot?
- The hedge line — any stems over 75mm at 1.5m that would need a notice? Any tree standards that would need separate consent?
- The property — listed building? Rural field boundary that might qualify as an "important" hedgerow under the 1997 Regs?
If a s.211 notice is needed, I file it on your behalf. The form is a single page; I attach a description of the work, a sketch of the hedge and my contractor details. Six weeks later, the work goes ahead. There's no fee. TDC's tree-and-CA team is small but functional.
If a TPO consent, a Listed Building Consent or a Hedgerow Removal Notice is needed, that's a longer process. I'll tell you at quote stage so you can decide.
Not sure if your address is in a CA?
Send your postcode to hello@thanethedges.co.uk or WhatsApp 07763 100 477. I'll check the TDC mapping and tell you whether the notice applies before you commit to anything. No charge for the check.
Sources: Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 211; Thanet District Council conservation area guidance and appraisals (Margate 2016; Cliftonville eight CAs 2016; Broadstairs 2018; Westgate-on-Sea 2006; Birchington Square 2024); Hedgerow Regulations 1997; Forestry Commission guidance on hedging-species exemptions.