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Trees

Walsall Council is rightly proud of its green credentials and the many trees that adorn its parks, open spaces and streets, as are the majority of our residents who prefer to live in such a leafy and green environment.  

Trees provide many benefits to the general population and the environment as a whole:

  • helping trap carbon-dioxide,
  • filtering dust from the air,
  • providing shade from harmful ultra-violet radiation,
  • supporting wildlife as well as being pleasing to look at and reflecting the changes in the seasons.

A comprehensive list of the benefits of trees can be found by following the link on the right of this of this page.

However, being living, growing organisms, trees do have certain characteristics that are not always compatible with the expectations of some residents and visitors to Walsall.  The Councils trees are being made the subject of routine inspections to ensure they are in a healthy, safe condition and not causing any statutory nuisance such as branches obstructing footpaths or roads, touching/damaging buildings or obscuring street-lamps and road-signs.

In this respect the Council has a legal obligation to routinely inspect and ensure work is carried-out to abate that sort of nuisance and provides the resources to carryout the necessary work.  Every year thousands of trees will be inspected in detail, measured and recorded on a computer database.  Any appropriate work is identified and instructions are given to our contractors. This routine pruning maintains the trees in safe condition and temporarily solves many residents concerns such as overhanging branches, controlling the growth and size of the tree, improving light to houses etc. However as you can appreciate with so many trees to manage and limited resources areas are prioritised and it may be that certain trees are not visited for many years.

If you do have problems with a tree or group of trees then the first thing you’ll need to do is identify whose land it is on. Is the tree on private land? The Council have no powers to force neighbours to trim their trees and it is only in extreme cases where the tree has been deemed as clearly dangerous by your Arborist/Tree Surgeon that the Council can act.

If the tree is on Council land then you need to decide which of the following situations apply to make sure you get through to the right department first time:

Street trees

If the problem tree stands in the pavement or adjacent to the highway on an adopted road then the responsibility for the tree is with Streetpride who can be contacted on 01922 653344 or by email on streetpride@walsall.gov.uk

Park trees

Should the problem you have be with a tree or trees in a public park or green open space then please contact the Principal Arborist for Greenspaces on 0121 360 9464 or email to trees@walsall.gov.uk

Cemetery trees

If the tree is in a cemetery then please call 01922 653344  or email streetpride@walsall.gov.uk

School grounds

Please contact the school directly as many of our schools control their own budgets and will advise you directly.

Housing trees

The Council does not retain any housing stock and if the problem tree is within the boundaries of a dwelling then you will need to contact the local housing office who will deal with your issue for you.

If you’re not sure about who owns the tree or whose responsible then please contact the Councils First Stop Shop on 01922 650000 or email enquiries@walsall.gov.uk and they may be able to direct your call.

Please remember that the Council are not able to resource all requests for work and to see if your problem will be actioned you should take a look at the Councils tree works management policy (PDF 76KB) which outlines what we can and can’t do currently to help with your problem.

If you are seeking to make a claim against one of the Councils trees then please take a look at our Tree related damage, claims checklist (PDF 34KB) to ensure that you have provided all the required information for us to process the claim.

If you are a Tree Works Contractor seeking to work privately in Walsall then please note our standards which can be viewed in the document Contractor on site checklist (PDF 21KB) which is the Councils minimum standard and will be used to assess you by on-site. If you are looking to get on to he Councils approved list then please contact Natural Environment Section of Planning Services on 01922 652447 or email treepreservation@walsall.go.uk

Above all else you must ensure that any tree that you propose to work on does not have a Tree Preservation Order on it or is not in a designated conservation area. If the trees are protected then written permission is required before any work can be undertaken or you (or your agent) may be guilty of a criminal offence. Please call 01922 652447 or email treepreservation@walsall.gov.uk to ascertain the legal status of any tree.

Please see below for further information on the Council's Tree management standards (PDF 76KB) and further tree related information;

Adobe PDF

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This page was last updated on 12 May 2008