Usually, yes. Homes are extended and sites developed near protected trees across Lancashire every year. What changes is how the project is planned. The council will want evidence that the tree can be kept healthy during and after construction, and that evidence normally takes the form of a tree survey carried out to the relevant British Standard. Handled early, a protected tree shapes the design rather than blocking it. Handled late, it can force a redesign at the worst possible moment, and in some cases the honest answer is that the scheme will not get consent as drawn.
Two separate permissions, often confused
Building near a protected tree usually involves two different processes. Planning permission covers the development itself: the extension, the new dwelling, the driveway. Consent for works to the tree covers anything done to the tree, from pruning a branch that overhangs the footprint through to removal. If the tree carries a Tree Preservation Order, that means an application to the council. In a conservation area, it means a Section 211 notice, which gives the council six weeks to decide whether it objects before the work can go ahead.
The two run on separate tracks, and assuming one covers the other is where many projects go wrong. Councils generally expect the trees to be dealt with inside the planning application, with the tree information submitted alongside the drawings, rather than sorted out after consent has been granted.
The first job, before any of that, is establishing whether the tree is protected at all. Our guide to checking whether a tree is protected explains how; the short version is that the council’s register is the definitive record, and it is worth confirming in writing before any drawings are commissioned.
The root protection area is the real constraint
Most people picture the problem as the trunk and the canopy. The bigger issue is underground. Around every retained tree the British Standard defines a root protection area, a zone calculated from the size of the tree in which the working roots are assumed to lie. Within it, the starting position is no excavation, no changes in ground level, no stored materials and no machinery, because compacted or severed roots can kill a tree years after the builders have left.
That zone, not the canopy, usually decides whether a layout works. Foundations, drainage runs, driveways, site access and the contractor’s compound all need planning around it. Building within it is sometimes possible with specialist engineering, but that has to be designed and justified in advance, not improvised on site.
What a proper survey does for your application
A BS 5837 tree survey records every tree that could affect or be affected by the development, grades each one for quality and retention value, and plots the root protection areas onto the site plan. From there, the arboricultural impact assessment and tree protection plan show the council exactly how the build avoids harm: where the protective fencing goes, what ground protection is used, and which trees, if any, are proposed for removal and why.
Timing matters more than most people realise. Commissioned before the design is fixed, the survey lets the architect place the footprint around the constraints from the start. Commissioned after the drawings are done, it regularly sends them back for revision. An early survey is a modest cost next to a redesign.
Our team covers Preston, Lancashire and the wider North West from our yard near Preston. We quote within one working day, survey visits are booked within days, and the report follows days after the visit rather than weeks. The price we quote is the price you pay, and we carry professional indemnity insurance of one million pounds for survey work. The survey itself is independent: the report stands alone, never depends on any works that might follow, and you are free to take it to any contractor. We do also carry out tree works as an ARB Approved Contractor, but nothing in the report requires you to use us.
When the answer is no
It would be misleading to suggest that the right paperwork gets every scheme through. Councils protect trees because they want them kept. Where a design depends on removing or heavily cutting back a high-quality protected tree, refusal is a real possibility, and no survey changes that. What a survey does is tell you early, while the design can still move, instead of after the application has been submitted.
What never helps is carrying out works to a protected tree without consent, or letting a contractor dig or run machinery through the root protection area. Both can amount to offences leading to fines, which for the most serious breaches can be unlimited. Rules and procedures change, so check current guidance with your council before touching a protected tree. This article is general information, not legal advice.
If you are planning a build near a tree and are not sure what the council or your architect needs, use the free scope check on our tree surveys page or call 01772 369694. Our team will tell you what you need, and just as readily what you do not.
