Pre application advice

Before making a formal application or notification to carry out works to protected trees, you may find it useful to get advice from the Council's Arboricultural Officers. Protected trees are those covered by Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs), planning conditions or situated in Conservation Areas.

What are the benefits to you?

It gives you an opportunity to understand how government guidance, good practice guidelines and our policies will be applied to your proposal and you can identify potential problems and sort them out before an application/notification is submitted. This can help prevent time-consuming amendments later:

• It may indicate that an application/notification is not necessary or has little or no realistic chance of success, thus saving you considerable time.
• It may lead to a reduction in time spent in amending the proposals.
• It can identify at an early stage whether any additional specialist advice is necessary (eg. subsidence and ecology)
• We can discuss with you, details of the proposal. This can help you prepare a better planning application so we can process it more quickly and provide you with a decision sooner.
• General concerns you may have over the health and condition of the trees can be addressed.

In order for us to be able to provide the best possible service, a charge is made for the provision of this advice. This is a fixed fee of £62 which includes VAT.

This covers up to a 30 minute site visit to inspect the tree(s) and to provide a written recommendation for any appropriate works. The recommendations are based on a non-climbing visual inspection of the tree(s) carried out by a qualified arboriculturist. These recommendations will reflect the Council's policy and accepted good practice in regard to tree care. Further information can be found in the Council's 'Tree and Woodland Strategy 2010-2020'.

We can usually inspect up to 6 trees on any single property within the 30 minute period, but if you have a requirement for more trees to be inspected then further time may need to be allowed. Please advise us if you wish us to inspect more than 6 trees, so that we may inform you of any revised charges.

To obtain pre-application advice

Please contact the Council's Tree Team on tel: 01628 796134 or via email: trees@rbwm.gov.uk. Please provide your contact details and the address of the site where the trees are situated.

Appointments are set up within normal working hours (Monday to Thursday 8.45am - 4.30pm, Fridays 8.45am - 4.15pm), excluding bank holidays .

Payment can either be made by cheque or credit/debit card. Cheques to be made payable to 'Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead' and sent to:

RBWM Tree Team
Planning and Development
Town Hall
St. Ives Road, Maidenhead
Berkshire, SL6 1RF

Payments via credit/debit card may be made over the phone or on-line.

Please note that no meeting will be booked until the necessary fee has been received.

Any advice given by Council officers following pre-application enquiries does not constitute a decision of the Council in respect of any future applications. Any views or opinions expressed are given in good faith, and to the best of ability, based on existing policies and standards, without prejudice to the formal consideration of any future planning application. The final decision on any application that you may then make can only be taken after the Council has consulted local people, statutory consultees and other interested parties as appropriate. The final decision on an application may be made by the Head of Planning or the Council's Development Control Panel.

It follows that officers cannot give guarantees about the final decision that will be made on any future planning application. However, any pre-application advice that has been provided will be carefully considered in reaching a decision or recommendation on an application, subject to the proviso that circumstances and information may change and so alter that position. (The weight given to pre-application advice recommendations will inevitably decline over time and little or no weight may be given to the Council's pre-application advice for proposals which are submitted more than one year after the advice is issued).

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