London has processed more than 90,000 tree applications since 2020. Almost none of the routine pruning is refused.

Tree work is not development, but it occupies a large part of the planning system. Across the London records we hold from 2020 onwards, councils processed 90,818 tree applications and conservation-area notices. They covered 61,575 identifiable sites.

The same sites keep returning

Twenty-nine per cent of sites appeared more than once. Those repeat sites generated 51.8 per cent of all tree applications, and 1,066 sites appeared at least five times. The busiest identifiable site in the record was Highgate Cemetery, with 154 applications.

This is not evidence of bad behaviour. Trees need recurring work. It is evidence that councils repeatedly administer predictable maintenance at the same places through individual planning submissions.

Protection level changes the answer

The refusal pattern is not evenly spread. Works to trees protected by a Tree Preservation Order were refused in 13.4 per cent of decided cases. Conservation-area notices were refused or objected to in only 0.7 per cent.

The kind of work matters too. Applications involving felling or removal were refused in 5.5 per cent of decided cases, compared with 3.6 per cent for pruning work. Oak was the species most likely to meet resistance in the classified record, at 10.5 per cent, while apple and magnolia were below 1 per cent.

Professional submissions perform slightly better

Applications with a named agent were refused in 4.3 per cent of decided cases, compared with 5.4 per cent without one. The planning record names an agent on 65.6 per cent of all tree submissions. The busiest are specialist arboricultural firms rather than general planning consultancies.

That difference is real but modest. The more striking finding is how rarely routine conservation-area pruning is resisted at all.

The clearest candidate for reform

We isolated conservation-area notices limited to pruning, crown reduction, lifting, thinning, trimming or pollarding, excluding felling and removal. Of 17,172 decided notices, councils refused or objected to 32. That is 0.19 per cent. The rate was 0.18 per cent among the 12,920 professionally submitted cases.

The data does not argue for removing protection from important trees. It argues for separating routine, professionally specified maintenance from work that could remove or seriously damage a protected asset. A notify-only route for accredited contractors, backed by a recognised work standard and an audit trail, would leave councils more time for felling, protected trees and genuinely contentious cases.

The planning system is spending repeated administrative effort on a category where more than 99.8 per cent of conservation-area pruning notices pass.

How we calculated it

The analysis uses London planning-register records held by Development Intent from 2020 onwards and classified as tree work. Repeat sites are matched using the available property identifier or full address. Refusal rates use decided records only. Conservation-area pruning includes pruning, crown, trim, reduction, lifting, thinning, pollarding and lopping terms; it excludes felling and removal. “Refused or objected to” is determined from the published decision description. Records without a usable site key are included in the application total but not the repeat-site calculation.