← All guides · Rules & paperwork · Updated July 2026

The six-week notice every Margate hedge job ought to consider.

If your garden sits inside one of Thanet District Council's Margate-area conservation areas, the CA rules pick up where ordinary garden law leaves off. Many streets in Cliftonville and the Old Town fall inside conservation areas, and many homeowners don't realise it. Check TDC's conservation area map. 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 a thing in English planning law since the Civic Amenities Act 1967. They protect the look and feel of an area, not just individual buildings, which is why the rules sweep up trees as well as bricks. Thanet District Council manages the Margate-area designations. In Margate itself, the headline CAs are:

• Margate CA (designated 1978, extended 1994), the historic core around the harbour and Old Town
• Margate Seafront CA (1997), the frontage strip
• Northdown CA (1985)
• Northdown Road CA (2016)
• Dalby Square, Clifton Place & Grotto Gardens, Clifftop, Ethelbert Road & Athelstan Road, Edgar Road & Sweyn Road, Norfolk Road, Warwick Road & Surrey Road, the Cliftonville conservation areas
• Westgate on Sea has its own CAs (with East and South parts) to the west, in adjacent CT8

If you're not sure whether you're inside one, Thanet DC's conservation area location map is the authoritative answer. Thanet has 27 conservation areas in all.

The actual rule, in plain English

Inside a conservation area, you have to give the council six weeks' written notice before you can prune, lop, top, or fell any tree with a trunk over 75mm in diameter measured at 1.5 metres from the ground (100mm if the work is felling purely to improve the growth of other trees). This is set out in section 211 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, hence the "s.211 notice" contractors mention.

Thanet DC cannot refuse a notice. It can either let the six weeks pass (after which you can do the work within two years of the notice), or make a Tree Preservation Order on the tree (in which case you need a separate consent application, which has no fee and takes up to eight weeks to decide).

Ignore the rule and cut anyway, and the fine can reach £20,000 in the magistrates' court, and is unlimited in the Crown Court. That's the number worth remembering.

What's exempt

Plenty, which is why most routine Margate hedge cutting falls outside the rule.

• Hedges and shrubs. Hedges and shrubs are normally not covered by the rule, even in a CA. It targets trees, but a tree growing in a hedge can be covered.
• Trunks under 75mm. Young hedges, formative cuts, anything where the largest individual stem is below the threshold.
• Dead trees and immediate danger. For a dead tree you give the council five working days' written notice before the work, with evidence that it is dead. If a tree presents an immediate danger, you can do what is needed and tell the council as soon as practicable afterwards. A replacement tree is required if a tree is removed as dead or dangerous.

What this means in practice for most Margate hedge jobs: the notice doesn't apply. A routine Griselinia, Escallonia, privet, laurel or hornbeam hedge cut in a Cliftonville or Old Town CA is normally not caught. The notice catches the awkward cases, such as a mature holly grown into a tree inside an old boundary, or an inherited hornbeam standard in a garden.

The hidden traps

Three things catch people out on Margate jobs.

Mature standards inside a hedge line. Older hedges can have one or two big trees grown up within them, such as holly, hornbeam or an inherited yew. They look like part of the hedge but they can be individual trees over the 75mm threshold. Reduce one of those as part of a hedge cut without filing a notice, and you've technically committed an offence even though the rest of the hedge is exempt.

TPO trees mixed into hedges. Separate to conservation areas, individual TPOs apply anywhere in the district. 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 buildings. Many Old Town properties are listed. Walls, gates and other structures within a listed building's curtilage can be covered by the listing, so changes to them may need Listed Building Consent. Trimming a hedge does not, but check with Thanet DC before altering boundary walls or gates.

High Hedges : separate rule, different route

If a neighbour's evergreen hedge is over 2m and blocking your light, the complaint route is the Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003 Part 8, not section 211. Thanet DC's High Hedges complaint fee is £650. Complaints are a last resort after neighbourly conversation: TDC says you must first have tried to resolve the matter yourself (two or more attempts).

How I handle it

Before I quote any conservation-area job, I check three things:

1. The council's mapping, is the property inside a conservation area, and are there any individual TPOs on the plot?
2. The hedge line, any stems over 75mm at chest height that would need a notice?
3. The property, listed building? Any wall or gate work that would need Listed Building Consent?

If a notice is needed, I can help you prepare it. A section 211 notice does not have to be in any particular form: it describes the work proposed, identifies the tree, and carries the date it is submitted (a plan helps). Six weeks later, unless the council makes a Tree Preservation Order, the work goes ahead. There is no fee for the notice itself.

Related: ready to give notice? How to get permission to prune a tree in a Margate or Cliftonville conservation area.

Sources: Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 211; GOV.UK, Tree Preservation Orders and trees in conservation areas; Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, Part 8; Thanet District Council conservation areas page.