Tree Management Policy 2025

Introduction - policy statement

Hart District Council manages approximately 550 hectares of public open space, including nature reserves, commons, amenity areas and car parks. These spaces are predominantly open for public access and feature varying levels of tree and woodland cover. Many of these areas have a boundary next to properties and the local road and footpath network, providing the District with natural beauty and the wide variety of benefits that trees give to our communities. 

Over the last three decades mounting evidence shows that trees help to: 

• Mitigate the impacts of climate change
• They capture and store carbon and other pollutants
• Produce clean oxygen
• Have a material cooling effect in our towns and cities during hot weather
• Reduce flooding and preserve soil quality
• Provide vital habitat in the face of significant species decline
• Reduce stress and improve our well-being
• Improve concentration and academic learning
• Reduce recovery times from illness

For these reasons, trees and woodlands need to be managed in specific ways to ensure they continue providing the benefits outlined above but at the same time suitably balanced with any risks they might pose to people's health and property. This, as an approach in principle, forms the basis of the most recent guidance by the National Tree Safety Group – Common Sense Risk management of Trees, published in September 2024.

The Council has a common duty of care under the Occupiers Liability Act 1957 and Occupiers Liability Act 1984 to ensure that we act as a reasonable and prudent landowner. This means that we must ensure that we avoid acts or omissions that could cause a foreseeable risk of harm to persons or property. This is reinforced in criminal law within section 3 of Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. Section 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 states that employers are responsible for making suitable and sufficient assessment of the risks posed to their employees and persons not in their employment.

The Council recognises that the risk from falling trees is low however and, as a large public landowner, we have specific legal and moral responsibilities to visitors to our land, people and property that live next to it, and members of the public in general.

The Council has implemented a tree management policy since 2009 and has subjected this to review. This document has been revised in accordance with current industry best practice, court precedent and statute. 

The Council will continue to proactively manage our tree resource while balancing this against the benefits and ecosystem services that they provide: