Hedgerow Regulations 1997: when your countryside hedge is legally protected.
Most people on the Wingham round know about the Section 211 rule for the conservation area. Fewer know about the Hedgerows Regulations 1997, which cover rural boundary hedgerows across a much wider area, and where the penalty for getting it wrong is a criminal conviction rather than a planning notice.
The calls that tend to catch people out are not in the village. They come from properties on the rural lanes between Preston and Elmstone, from converted farmsteads around Nonington, and from plots near Staple and Ash where the old field-margin hedgerows are still in place. Someone wants to widen a gateway, or clear a section for a new outbuilding, and no one told them that the long hawthorn and blackthorn boundary between their paddock and the neighbour's field might be regulated. The Hedgerows Regulations 1997 require a 42-day written notice to Dover District Council before removing any part of a qualifying countryside hedgerow. Skipping that step is a criminal offence, not a planning infringement that gets remedied with retrospective consent.
This guide runs through the decision logic in order, so you can work out whether your hedge qualifies, what the notice process involves, and what you can still do without any permission at all.
Does this regulation apply to your hedge? Work through these questions in order.
- Is it a private garden hedge? If the hedge forms the boundary of, or sits within, the curtilage of a private dwelling, the Hedgerows Regulations do not apply to it. You do not need a removal notice. (Other rules may still apply: see Section 211 below if you are inside the Wingham Conservation Area.)
- Is the land agricultural or similar countryside land? GOV.UK says the regulations apply to hedgerows on or next to land used for agriculture or forestry, horse-keeping land, common land, village greens, SSSIs, nature reserves and certain other land. A hedge separating two paddocks, running along the edge of a former orchard, or dividing a smallholding from arable land is much more likely to qualify than one inside a residential garden. If your plot was converted from agricultural use, the position may not be obvious: check the land use history with DDC before assuming it falls outside the scope.
- Is the hedge over 20 metres long, or does it connect to another hedgerow at each end? Both conditions satisfy the size threshold. A short section that connects to longer field-boundary hedgerows at each end is still covered, even if the section itself is under 20 metres. A standalone ornamental hedge under 20 metres that connects to nothing is outside the scope.
- If all three are yes: the hedge is a qualifying countryside hedgerow under the Hedgerows Regulations 1997. You must serve a Hedgerow Removal Notice on Dover District Council and wait the full 42 days before any removal work begins. If DDC issues a Hedgerow Retention Notice within those 42 days, you cannot proceed.
The 42-day notice: what it involves
A Hedgerow Removal Notice is a written notification to the local planning authority (Dover District Council for the Wingham round) stating your intention to remove all or part of a qualifying hedgerow. It must include a description of the hedgerow to be removed, a plan showing its location, the reasons for removal, and the proposed start date. DDC then has 42 calendar days from the date they receive the notice to respond.
If DDC issues a Hedgerow Retention Notice within those 42 days, removal is prohibited. A retention notice can be appealed to the Planning Inspectorate, but that is a formal legal process rather than a quick resolution. If DDC does not respond within 42 days, or confirms in writing that the hedgerow is not important under the regulations, you may proceed with the removal. Do not assume silence before the 42 days are up is consent: the clock runs from confirmed receipt, not from when you posted the form.
The notice process does not involve a fee. DDC's planning department handles it, and their tree and hedgerow officers are the contact for questions about whether a specific hedge is likely to qualify. The same officers deal with Section 211 notifications, so they are familiar with the Wingham Conservation Area position alongside the wider Hedgerows Regulations work. Contact details are on the Dover District Council website.
What makes a hedgerow "important" under the regulations
A qualifying countryside hedgerow that is at least 30 years old and meets at least one of the criteria in the Schedule to the Hedgerows Regulations 1997 is classified as "important". If you serve a removal notice for an important hedgerow, the council will normally issue a retention notice, and removal can only go ahead in limited circumstances. In practice, treat an important hedgerow as one you keep.
The criteria cover several different categories of value. Ecological criteria include the presence of protected species (such as hazel dormice or birds protected under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981), a species-rich composition with a high count of native woody species, and connection to ancient woodland or other ecologically significant habitats. Archaeological and historical criteria include forming an ancient parish or administrative boundary, marking the boundary of an archaeological feature, or appearing on pre-Enclosure Act maps or similar historical records. Landscape criteria cover membership of a field system of particular historical importance.
On the Wingham round, the hedgerows most likely to carry one or more of these qualifiers are the older native mixed hedgerows that run along the field margins between the villages rather than along residential boundaries. The chalk-side areas toward Adisham and Nonington retain some of the older enclosure-era field patterns. The rural lanes between Preston and Elmstone cross ground where hedgerow networks have connected since at least the eighteenth century, and a long mixed hawthorn, blackthorn, elder and field maple hedge on this ground is a reasonable candidate for the species-rich ecological criterion. If your hedge is one of these older rural boundaries, the "important" classification is a genuine possibility, not a remote one.
For hazel dormice specifically: Kent is a stronghold county for this protected mammal, and hedgerows connecting with woodland edge in the Little Stour valley around Wickhambreaux and Ickham, or on the more wooded ground south toward Nonington, deserve particular care. The dormice and hedgerows guide on this site covers what that means in practice for cutting cadence and removal decisions.
What you can do without a notice
Routine management of a countryside hedgerow does not require a Hedgerow Removal Notice. Trimming, cutting back, coppicing, hedge laying, and the removal of individual dead or diseased plants are all explicitly outside the scope of the removal requirement. The regulations catch removal of the hedgerow itself, meaning actions that destroy or permanently remove it.
This is an important practical distinction for the rural properties on this round. A long hawthorn boundary hedge along a Preston paddock that is cut and managed each year does not need any notice. The same hedge cleared to the ground to create a new gateway or access point does. A section where a run of blackthorn has died back completely and is being cleared out is probably permissible without a notice if dead plant material alone is being removed, but if the removal opens a gap in a living hedgerow, the position is less straightforward and worth confirming with DDC before starting.
Hedge laying deserves a specific mention here. Laying is an active management technique, not removal, and it is exempt. On native mixed hedgerows around the older rural plots toward Nonington and Staple, hedge laying is often the right long-term approach anyway: it thickens the base, extends the hedge's useful life by decades, and creates dense nesting habitat. A well-laid hawthorn hedge on chalk ground near Adisham will outperform a repeatedly hard-trimmed one on the same soil across almost any metric.
Bird nesting season and the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981
Section 1 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 makes it an offence to intentionally or recklessly damage or destroy a wild bird's nest while it is in use or being built. The Act sets no calendar dates; 1 March to 31 August is the accepted guidance window. Any hedgerow work, whether it requires a removal notice or not, must not disturb active nests. On the Wingham round, blackbird, robin, wren, dunnock and long-tailed tit are reliably nesting in managed hedgerows from mid-March. On the older native mixed hedgerows toward Preston and Nonington, yellowhammer and whitethroat are also possible in thicker sections. Heavy work including removal defaults to the September to February window. Any in-season work, including lighter management, requires a competent visual check inside the hedge canopy before starting. This obligation runs alongside the Hedgerows Regulations: the two legal frameworks apply independently, and satisfying one does not discharge the other.
How this sits alongside Section 211 and TPO rules
The Hedgerows Regulations 1997, the Section 211 conservation area notice requirement, and Tree Preservation Orders are three separate legal frameworks that can overlap on the same piece of ground without any one of them substituting for another.
The Section 211 rule applies to work on trees inside the Wingham Conservation Area where the stem exceeds 75mm at 1.5 metres. Hedges and shrubs are normally not covered, but a hedge line that has grown into trees can be. A countryside hedgerow inside the conservation area boundary could in principle trigger both Section 211 and Hedgerows Regulations requirements, though in practice the conservation area footprint is limited to the historic High Street and its immediate environs, and is well away from the agricultural plots at Preston, Elmstone and Nonington where the Hedgerows Regulations are more likely to apply. The Section 211 guide covers the conservation area process in detail.
Tree Preservation Orders protect individual trees and groups of trees, including trees growing within a hedgerow. A TPO on a tree within a hedgerow does not itself engage the Hedgerows Regulations for the rest of the hedge, but removal work that affects a TPO tree within the hedgerow requires separate consent under the TPO regime. Check the DDC interactive map before any hedgerow removal work that involves significant tree stems. The TPO check guide covers how to do that.
Since May 2024 there is a fourth framework that applies to agricultural hedgerow management. The Management of Hedgerows (England) Regulations 2024 ban cutting or trimming an agricultural hedgerow between 1 March and 31 August and require a green-cover buffer strip reaching 2 metres from the centre of the hedgerow on land in parcels larger than 2 hectares. This is a separate regime to the 1997 removal rules, enforced by the Rural Payments Agency rather than Dover District Council. The two sets of rules are independent and can apply to the same hedgerow simultaneously.
The practical position for Wingham round properties
The clearest cases where the Hedgerows Regulations are unlikely to apply on this round: a formal garden hedge fronting a residential property within the Wingham village boundary, a domestic privet or laurel boundary between two residential gardens, or an ornamental hedge that runs entirely within a private garden and does not connect to any wider hedgerow network.
The cases worth checking before assuming clearance is free: a long boundary hedge along the edge of a field or paddock at Preston, Elmstone, Nonington or Staple; a hedge separating a converted agricultural building plot from adjoining farmland; an old mixed hedgerow along a rural lane between villages that pre-dates the property; or any hedge that connects at both ends to other hedgerows running along field margins. On these properties, the standard approach is to photograph the hedge, note its approximate length and connections, and put a brief query to DDC's planning department before any removal work is priced or booked. The 42-day wait is built into the programme from the start, not discovered at the last minute.
The hedge contractor's role here is to flag the Hedgerows Regulations position and not to proceed with a removal job that looks like it might qualify without checking, not to provide legal advice on whether a specific hedge is regulated. If there is any uncertainty about a hedge on a rural plot, the safest path is a brief written query to DDC. A query is not a removal notice and does not start any clock. It is simply a question, and DDC's tree and hedgerow officers are generally helpful in giving an informal steer on whether a formal notice is needed.
A removal job that needs checking first
If you are planning to remove a hedgerow on a rural or formerly agricultural plot anywhere on the Wingham round and are not certain whether the Hedgerows Regulations apply, call or email before booking any work. We will not start a removal job that looks like it might require a Hedgerow Removal Notice without confirming the position first. Send a postcode and a note about the hedge to hello@winghamhedges.co.uk or call 07763 100 477.
Sources: The Hedgerows Regulations 1997 (SI 1997/1160), made under the Environment Act 1995 s.97 (GOV.UK countryside hedgerows guidance checked 12 October 2026); GOV.UK, Countryside hedgerows: regulation and management; CPRE, Hedgerow Regulations FAQs; Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 s.1; Town and Country Planning Act 1990 s.211; Dover District Council, tree and hedgerow enquiries; Hedgelink, Hedgerow protection guidance; Cranfield Soilscapes chalk and Thanet Sand series notes.