The Management of Hedgerows (England) Regulations 2024

General maintenance requirements for important hedgerows

5.—(1) An owner of an important hedgerow or any person employed or engaged by an owner or otherwise acting on an owner’s behalf must, in relation to an important hedgerow or the owner’s agricultural land, comply with the general maintenance requirements set out in paragraphs (2) and (3).

(2) The requirements set out in this paragraph are to take all reasonable steps to establish and thereafter maintain green cover on land within two metres of the centre of an important hedgerow.

(3) The requirements set out in this paragraph are to not cultivate or apply fertilisers or pesticides to land within two metres of the centre of an important hedgerow unless—

(a) using pesticides, by way of spot application, to control the spread of any of the following weeds—

(i) broad-leaved dock (Rumex obtusifolius);

(ii) creeping or field thistle (Cirsium arvense);

(iii) curled dock (Rumex crispus);

(iv) giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum);

(v) Himalayan balsam (Impatiens glandulifera);

(vi) Japanese knotweed (Reynoutria japonica);

(vii) ragwort (Senecio jacobaea);

(viii) rhododendron (Rhododendron ponticum);

(ix) spear thistle (Cirsium vulgare); and

(b) the land is being cultivated for one or more of the reasons specified in paragraph (4).

(4) The reasons specified in this paragraph are that—

(a) the land is being cultivated to establish a green cover where a green cover does not exist;

(b) written permission from the Regulator has been given to cultivate the land in order to—

(i) enhance the environment;

(ii) improve public or agricultural access; or

(iii) for reasons relating to livestock or crop production;

(c) the land is being cultivated because there is otherwise a risk to human or animal health and safety;

(d) the land is being cultivated or, as the case may be, fertilisers are being applied or pesticides are being used to—

(i) enable the treatment of a serious cause of harm to plant health or a serious infestation of any pest or weed; or

(ii) to permit measures to be taken to prevent the development of any such cause of harm or infestation.

(5) The requirements of this regulation do not apply to—

(a) land either side of an important hedgerow where it can be demonstrated that the hedgerow is less than five years old;

(b) land forming part of a parcel of two hectares or less, as measured within permanent boundary features;

(c) the casting up of a traditional hedgerow bank during the period beginning 1st September in any year and ending on 28th or, as the case may be, 29th February in the following year, inclusive of those dates;

(d) land on the side of an important hedgerow which is facing a dwelling house where the hedgerow marks a boundary of the curtilage of the dwelling house;

(e) land used for an allotment within the meaning given by section 1 of the Allotments Act 1925(1) (interpretation).

(6) In paragraph (5)(c), a “traditional hedgerow bank” means an earth bank faced with turf or stone and topped with hedge plants.

(7) This regulation applies—

(a) as regards agricultural land next to an important hedgerow that is not used for crop production, from 1st July 2024; or

(b) as regards agricultural land next to an important hedgerow that is used for crop production, from the end of the first harvest of that crop that takes place after 1st July 2024.

(1)

1925 c. 61. Section 1 was amended by the Statute Law Repeals Act 1993 (c. 50), Schedule 1, Part 3.