This patch puts two very different kinds of garden either side of a council boundary. In Birmingham, Edgbaston has very large town gardens, with trees planted when the Calthorpe family laid out the estate in the 19th century, and Harborne mixes Victorian terraces with the Moor Pool garden suburb. In Sandwell, Bearwood and Smethwick are tightly packed late-Victorian and Edwardian terraces, and Oldbury and Langley mostly interwar and post-war semis.
B15, B17 and B32 are Birmingham City Council. B67 and B68 are Sandwell Council. B16 and B66 straddle the two: most of B16 is Birmingham, while most of B66 (Smethwick and Bearwood) is Sandwell. Tree rules, bin services and tips all depend on which council you are in.
Branch and Bramble never carries out work itself. We pass your enquiry to one local specialist who covers these postcodes, and they give you a fixed price.
Tree Preservation Orders, conservation areas and estate rules
Birmingham conservation areas in the patch: Edgbaston (with an Article 4 Direction), Barnsley Road, Lee Crescent, Ryland Road and St Augustine's in Edgbaston; and Greenfield Road (Article 4), Harborne Old Village and Moor Pool (Article 4) in Harborne. Birmingham requires six weeks' notice for work to any conservation area tree with a trunk over 75mm across at 1.5m above ground (council guidance). Individual TPOs are shown on the council's online TPO map.
The Calthorpe Estate. Much of Edgbaston is covered by the Calthorpe Estate's Scheme of Management, made under the Leasehold Reform Act 1967. According to the estate and its residents' society, trees on both freehold and leasehold homes within the Scheme (apart from fruit trees) need the estate's permission before work. Requests go through the estate's managing agent, currently Principle Estate Management; see the Calthorpe Estates FAQs. This is on top of any council notice or TPO consent, not instead of it.
Moor Pool, Harborne. The council's Moor Pool conservation area appraisal says every tree that was standing when the conservation area was created is protected by Tree Preservation Order No 534 (1971). Those trees need formal council consent before work, not just notice. Trees planted since then, mostly cherry and rowan, are still in the conservation area, so they need six weeks' notice.
Sandwell. Of Sandwell's nine conservation areas, four are in Smethwick: Galton Valley, Smethwick Town Centre High Street, High Street and Crocketts Lane, and Cape Hill Town Centre. Church Square, Oldbury is just outside the patch. Most of Bearwood is outside them, but the council's historic areas page puts 4 to 32 Bearwood Road inside the High Street and Crocketts Lane conservation area. Sandwell TPOs are checked through the council's public access planning system.
See our guides to trees in conservation areas and how to check if a tree has a TPO.
The local landscape
Edgbaston has Regency and Victorian villas on large plots with old trees: London plane, common lime, horse chestnut, copper beech, cedar of Lebanon, holm oak and yew. Many are well over 20 metres, so work near houses and walls needs rigging.
Harborne is more varied. Victorian and Edwardian terraces off the High Street have long, narrow gardens. The Moor Pool estate, built from 1907 as a garden suburb, has cottage-style houses with hedged front gardens and mature trees along the roads. Quinton and Bartley Green are mainly interwar and post-war semis, with conifer screens and ash along the boundaries.
Bearwood and Smethwick are dense terraces with small back gardens and rear entries; trees are often self-sown sycamore, ash or buddleia grown into walls. Warley, Oldbury and Langley have 1930s semis, and Warley Woods and Lightwoods Park bring mature parkland trees up to some back fences.
Tree work in Edgbaston & Harborne
Edgbaston is where the bigger tree jobs in this patch are. A crown reduction on a mature plane or cedar in a Calthorpe Estate garden may need three sign-offs: the council (conservation area notice or TPO consent), the estate under its Scheme of Management, and in some cases the neighbour whose garden the crew has to work from. Allow time for all of it. Our crown reduction cost guide shows the price ranges, and trees over 15 metres are priced after a free survey.
In Moor Pool, the older trees, those standing when the conservation area was created, are under TPO No 534, so even modest pruning on them needs a formal application. Younger trees there still need six weeks' notice. The tree surgeon can advise on what to apply for.
Over in Bearwood and Smethwick, the work is smaller but fiddly. A sycamore that has grown into a boundary wall has to come down in pieces carried through the house, and the stump is often best ground out with stump grinding or left and treated. Tree removal starts from £280 for a small tree.
Other common jobs are pollarding of previously pollarded limes, and hedge reduction or hedge removal for conifer screens in Quinton and Oldbury.
The tree surgeon we pass your enquiry to has had their insurance and NPTC chainsaw certificates checked. See the Edgbaston and Harborne tree surgery page or all tree services.
Local questions
I live on the Calthorpe Estate. Who do I ask before tree work?
Possibly two bodies. If your home is within the Calthorpe Estate's Scheme of Management, you need the estate's permission for tree work (fruit trees aside), arranged through its managing agent. If the tree is in a conservation area or has a TPO, you also need to notify the council or get its consent. The estate's permission does not replace the council's.
Are all the trees in Moor Pool protected?
The council's appraisal says every tree standing when the conservation area was created is covered by TPO No 534 (1971). For those trees you need formal consent from Birmingham City Council before any cutting or removal. Later trees are protected by the conservation area, which means six weeks' notice. Check the council's online TPO map, and see do I need permission to cut down a tree?
Is Bearwood in Birmingham or Sandwell?
Bearwood is in Sandwell, although it sits right next to Harborne and Edgbaston. It means Sandwell's £40 garden waste subscription and the Shidas Lane tip, not the Birmingham services. Most of B66, B67 and B68 is Sandwell; B15, B17 and B32 are Birmingham.
Can a tree surgeon work from my neighbour's garden?
Only with the neighbour's agreement, so talk to them early. If it is their tree overhanging you, see our guide to cutting neighbours' overhanging branches.