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Why you should fell diseased trees

You must fell trees on a site that are infected with a pest or disease if you get a statutory plant health notice (SPHN) that tells you to do so. You may also need to fell surrounding trees and shrubs.

The trees and diseases youll get notices for are:

• larch with phytophthora ramorum
• sweet chestnut with phytophthora ramorum
• sweet chestnut with sweet chestnut blight
• spruce with spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus)

Felling helps protect a site and the wider environment by:

• containing a disease and preserving as many trees as possible on a site
• preventing a disease spreading from an infected site to others
• allowing a site affected by pests or disease to adapt, by felling affected trees
• making space to grow trees that might resist the disease
• protecting the environmental and public benefits on a site as a whole for example, as habitats for wildlife or for the production of timber

Before you start

You must fell diseased trees if you receive a statutory plant health notice (SPHN) that tells you to do so. This will specify what you need to do and when you need to do it.

Before you start work, you need to get these permissions if they are relevant to your site:

• apply for consent from Natural England for work on or near a site of special scientific interest (SSSI)
• apply for consent from Historic England for work on or near a scheduled monument
• apply for a licence to disturb protected species
• apply for consent from the local council for work on a tree protected by a tree preservation order (TPO)

Youll need to apply for a felling licence from the Forestry Commission if youre felling trees outside of the SPHN boundary.

You may need to improve the access and infrastructure on site to allow felling and associated works to happen safely and efficiently.

Felling larch, sweet chestnut or spruce

You may need to follow special precautions to fell trees infected with these diseases and pests.

Phytophthora ramorum

Your SPHN will include specific instructions if its necessary to fell larch or sweet chestnut trees infected by Phytophthora ramorum to lower the risk of infecting other plants in the area.

Any felling licence applications for larch or sweet chestnut close to an SPHN may be delayed if trees:

• are or may be already infected with Phytophthora ramorum
• have dropped their needles in the autumn this makes it harder to identify if a tree is infected, and increases the risk of accidentally transporting infected material

Sweet chestnut blight

Your SPHN will include specific instructions if you need to fell trees that are infected by sweet chestnut blight to lower the risk of infecting other plants in the area. This sometimes requires removal and destruction of the whole tree, including stumps and roots.

Spruce bark beetle

Your SPHN will include specific instructions to fell trees infected with spruce bark beetle. This may include removing all the bark from felled trees.

You must get advice from the Forestry Commission Tree Health team before doing any work on conifer species in the demarcated area which includes the proactive spruce removal area.

How to fell trees

You must not fell trees unless you have an SPHN or have a felling licence.

If youve received a SPHN, you must follow the instructions it gives you. For example, it might tell you:

• whether to fell a specific species or to treat it chemically
• what time of year to fell or treat
• how you must prepare the ground
• how you should cut trees or scrub manually (with a clearing saw or chainsaw) or by machine (using a tractor fitted with a cab, or with flail if clearing scrub)

How to avoid transferring disease to other sites

You can prevent the spread of tree pests and diseases by following biosecurity precautions.

Your SPHN will also specify precautions you must take.

What to do with felled trees

Your SPHN will say whether the felled trees must be destroyed on site or can be moved. It will also give any conditions you must meet before trees can be moved. Whether you can move any part of the tree off site will depend on the:

• type of pest or disease
• the species of tree
• the setting (inside or outside of a woodland)

Selling timber and moving trees off site

You can sell timber from trees infected with Phytophthora ramorum if the trees are felled before the quality of the timber is affected.

It may be possible to use the timber from woodland trees affected by sweet chestnut blight or spruce bark beetle. Spruce with the bark on must not be moved unless you have permission from a Forestry Commission plant health inspector.

You must get advice from the Forestry Commission before moving any material off site. You can email the Tree Health team: THPilotenquiries@forestrycommission.gov.uk

Youll need to apply for a movement licence from the Forestry Commission before you can move diseased timber. The timber can only be moved to a facility which holds a processing licence to handle it.

When you need plant passports

You will need a plant passport to move within Great Britain certain regulated species of:

• wood
• wood products this includes chips, particles, shavings, sawdust, wood waste or scrap and some other types of wood product where there could still be a phytosanitary risk, even after processing
• isolated bark

The wood, wood products and bark that must have plant passports include:

• all conifers with bark and the isolated bark of conifer
• Castanea (sweet chestnut) with bark and the isolated bark of sweet chestnut

Youll need to register as a professional operator with the Forestry Commission, if you want to issue plant passports.

If you have a question about the movement of regulated wood, wood products or bark within Great Britain

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