The Common Agricultural Policy (Integrated Administration and Control System and Enforcement and Cross Compliance) (Wales) Regulations 2014

Retention of landscape features - ban on cutting hedges and trees U.K.

14.—(1) Except where sub-paragraphs (2), (3), (4) or (5) apply, a beneficiary must not cut or trim any hedgerow or tree on a holding during the period beginning on 1 March and ending on 31 August, both dates inclusive.

(2) A beneficiary may cut or trim a hedgerow or tree at any time if—

(a) it is necessary to cut or trim it because it—

(i) overhangs a highway or any other road or footpath to which the public has access so as to endanger or obstruct the passage of vehicles or pedestrians;

(ii) obstructs or interferes with the view of drivers of vehicles or the light from a public lamp;

(iii) overhangs a highway so as to endanger or obstruct the passage of horse-riders; or

(b) it is necessary to cut or trim it because—

(i) it is dead, diseased, damaged or insecurely rooted, and

(ii) because of its condition it, or part of it, is likely to cause danger by falling on the highway road or footpath; or

(c) the cutting or trimming is carried out in order to maintain a ditch; or

(d) the tree is in an orchard,

and the beneficiary does not disturb any birds nesting in the hedgerow or tree.

(3) A beneficiary may carry out hedgerow-laying and hedgerow and tree coppicing—

(a) during the period beginning on 1 March and ending on 31 March if the beneficiary does not disturb any birds nesting in the hedgerow or tree; or

(b) during the period beginning on 1 March and ending on 30 April if the Welsh Ministers have given the beneficiary written permission to do so because the Welsh Ministers consider it necessary for purposes of a competition or training event.

(4) A beneficiary may trim a hedgerow by hand during a period of six months beginning with the first day after the hedge was laid.

(5) A beneficiary may cut or trim a hedgerow or tree on arable land during August if the beneficiary is planting winter arable crops on that land as part of the beneficiary's normal farming practice and the beneficiary does not disturb any birds nesting in the hedgerow or tree.