The hedge you must not cut

How we work

Why the calendar is a legal matter

Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981 it is an offence intentionally to take, damage or destroy the nest of a wild bird while that nest is in use or being built. The main nesting season runs roughly from March to August, which is precisely when gardens look untidy and clients want hedges cut. The two facts collide every year, and the resolution is not a matter of preference: an active nest means the hedge waits.

What makes this different from most compliance questions is where the liability lands. The offence is committed by the person carrying out the work. A client's instruction to go ahead is not a defence, so a contractor who cuts when asked has not transferred the problem to the person who asked. That is why we inspect first and why we will decline a direct instruction here, which is almost the only circumstance in which we would.

Two related checks sit alongside it. A tree under a Tree Preservation Order, or a qualifying tree in a conservation area, cannot be felled or pruned without the local authority's consent, and contravention can bring an unlimited fine — so we check the status with the council rather than relying on what a previous owner believed. And green waste leaving a site must travel under waste carrier registration to an authorised facility with the transfer documented, because fly-tipped waste is traced back to the property it came from, not to the van that moved it.