On 19/03/2011 16:54, kay wrote:
Does anyone have first-hand experience of gardening in a Conservation
Area?

I have been discussing with the Council tree person the impact of their
proposal to extend the Conservation Area to include our house and
garden.

Very briefly:

All trees with a trunk of 3 inches dia or more at about 5ft high are
covered, and for any work on them, I need to give six weeks notice, and
fill in a form with a plan showing the trees' location and full details
of the work I need to do.

This covers all work, including, eg annual pruning of fruit trees. He
has told me that picking of bay leaves for culinary purposes, and
picking holly for christmas decorations should, by law, be applied for
similarly but will be overlooked.

I will have to apply every single year to carry out annual pruning - I
cannot get an approval to annually prune.

There appears to be no way in which to get a particular tree exempted -
eg for them to decide that a leylandii doesn't add to the conservation
character of the area and therefore I may continue to cut it back to
keep it within bounds.

Since I have around 40 trees over the size limit, are close to reaching
it, this is going to cause me a considerable amount of paperwork, and,
more importantly, it will cause them a lot of paperwork (I think he was
very sensible to concede on bay leaves ;-) )

So - is this the attitude tree officers are taking elsewhere, or is my
particular tree officer not quite au fait with the legislation (my
father believes that there is something in the primary legislation
saying that it shouldn't override good husbandry, and so annual pruning
of fruit trees is allowed)?




Hi Kay,

We are in a conservation area, and it is a real pain :~(. Our case is
slightly different to yours in that a separate body controls the
conservation area, so in some cases we would need permission from the
Council and the other Body. Fruit trees are generally discounted but,
(I think)that permission would nevertheless be required if a fruit tree
died and needed removing. Not only do you then need the Body to give
permission for the trees removal, but you also have to pay them *and*
they then tell you what you're allowed to plant in its place!!! :~[.

I can assure you, it's not easy to live with ... or that is to say it's
not easy if you follow all the rules ;~}. We love trees and plant them
and do most of our own tree work, at least while we're still fit enough.
We do have to be a bit careful because, although we have mostly gorgeous
neighbours, there is someone who rats on others. To make matters worse,
our conservation rules apply to the whole property so you can't put in
new windows .. or build a wall .. or put your washing out on the wrong
day (yes, *really*!). I have come across a few conservation areas like
ours and they are not at all popular with the locals.

--
Spider
from high ground in SE London
gardening on clay