High hedges appeal: what to do about a remedial notice

 

A high hedges appeal is what you make when the council has dealt with a complaint about a tall garden hedge and you are unhappy with how it went. The appeal goes to the Secretary of State, and in practice a planning inspector decides it.

Two things make this one unusual. Both neighbours can appeal, not just the one who received the notice. And you get 28 days, which is a great deal less than an ordinary planning appeal allows.

 

Who can make a high hedges appeal

 

Both neighbours have a right of appeal, which is unusual and is the thing people get wrong most often. It is not only the person who has been told to cut the hedge.

• where the council issues a remedial notice, withdraws one, or waives or relaxes what it asks for, both sides can appeal: the person who complained, and the owner or occupier of the land the hedge stands on
• where the council decides the complaint itself against the complainant, either finding no adverse effect or deciding that no action is needed, only the complainant can appeal

The first of those catches people out. If you complained, got a notice, and then the council quietly withdrew it or watered it down, you can appeal that as well. It is not only the hedge owner who gets to argue.

The second matters just as much. If the council told you it was not going to do anything at all, you are not stuck with that answer.

 

You get 28 days, and there is a safety net

 

An appeal has to be made before the end of 28 days beginning with what the Act calls the relevant date. In plain terms that means one of two things. If you are appealing against the remedial notice itself, it is the day the notice was issued. For any other appeal it is the day the council told you what it had decided.

There is a real safety net, and it is worth knowing about because most people assume there is not one. The appeal authority can allow a longer period. That is a discretion rather than a right, so do not plan around it, but if you are already late it is worth asking rather than giving up.

Now the trap, because this is the part that catches people out. There are two different 28 day periods here and they are not the same thing. A remedial notice cannot take effect until at least 28 days after it was issued, and the notice will state the date it takes effect. That date is the deadline for doing the work, not the deadline for appealing. The two periods are the same length and they start from the same event, which is exactly why they get muddled. Read the notice for the date the work is due, and count your appeal deadline separately from the day the notice was issued.

 

The grounds are fixed, so pick the right one

 

You cannot simply say the decision was unfair. The regulations set out the grounds you are allowed to argue, and they are a closed list. Against the issue of a remedial notice there are four.

• the height of the hedge is not adversely affecting the reasonable enjoyment of the property
• what the notice requires is not enough to fix the problem or to stop it happening again
• what the notice requires goes beyond what is necessary or appropriate
• the time allowed to do the work is shorter than it reasonably should be

Notice how those split between the two sides. The second is a ground for the person who complained, who thinks the council has been too soft. The third is a ground for the hedge owner, who thinks it has gone too far. Both sides appeal under the same regulation.

Where the council has withdrawn a notice, or waived or relaxed what it asked for, the argument is essentially that nothing had changed enough to justify doing so.

Where the council decided the complaint against you and you are appealing that, the bar is higher and it is important to understand why. The ground is not that the council came to the wrong answer. It is that the council could not reasonably have come to the answer it did. An inspector who thinks the council was probably wrong, but entitled to take the view it took, will dismiss that appeal.

 

The notice does nothing while the appeal runs

 

If an appeal is properly made, the remedial notice has no effect at all until the appeal is finally decided or withdrawn. Nobody has to start cutting while the argument is going on.

It works the other way too. If the council has withdrawn a notice, or waived or relaxed what it required, and that is the decision being appealed, then the withdrawal or the relaxation is itself put on hold until the appeal is over.

If the notice is upheld, varied or corrected on appeal, it takes effect on the date of that decision or a later date the decision sets, so the clock for doing the work starts again from then. If the appeal is withdrawn, it takes effect on the day of the withdrawal.

 

How a high hedges appeal actually works

 

You appeal by sending the Secretary of State a completed appeal form, together with copies of anything you are relying on, within the 28 days.

Send a copy of the form and those documents to the council at the same time. This is easy to miss and it is a requirement, not a courtesy.

After that the council has jobs of its own. It has to tell the Secretary of State and you the name and address of every other person involved, meaning any other complainant, owner or occupier. It also has to return a questionnaire within a period the Secretary of State sets, which will be at least 21 days.

Deadlines on the way through are real. Anything sent in after the time allowed can simply be left out of account, and the decision taken on what arrived on time. So do not hold material back for a later stage.

The decision comes with written reasons. The Secretary of State can appoint someone else to hear and decide the appeal, which in practice is what happens, and that appointment can be revoked.

One point deserves emphasis, because it surprises people. The decision binds the appellant and every other complainant, owner and occupier, not just whoever actually joined in the appeal. A neighbour who stayed out of it is bound by the outcome all the same.

 

What a high hedges appeal costs

 

The main cost most people meet in a high hedges dispute comes earlier, at the complaint stage. A council may charge a fee for looking at a complaint in the first place, and that is deliberate, to keep the system as a last resort after neighbours have genuinely tried to sort it out. It is not a planning application, so the planning application fees that are set nationally do not apply and the charge varies from council to council. Ask yours what it charges before you commit.

Beyond that, the cost of an appeal is mostly your own time and whatever help you choose to pay for. These appeals turn on the height of the hedge and how far it affects the reasonable enjoyment of your property, which in practice usually comes down to light, so photographs taken through the year, and a clear plan of where the hedge sits in relation to the windows it affects, usually do more work than paid expert evidence will.

 

Is an appeal the right move?

 

Be clear about the best outcome available before you spend anything, because it is more limited than people expect. A remedial notice can never require a hedge to be removed, and can never require it to be cut below two metres. If what you actually want is a clear boundary, no appeal will deliver it. The realistic prize is a hedge kept at a height above two metres rather than the height it is now.

Two further limits are worth checking before you start. Roots are outside this system altogether, so a complaint about roots damaging a drive or a wall is not a high hedges matter. And a single tree, however large, is not a high hedge. You need a line of two or more evergreens, or semi evergreens, rising more than two metres above ground level, and gaps in the line can take it outside the definition entirely.

If you are the one who complained and the council decided against you, weigh the reasonableness test honestly. It is a high bar and it is not simply a second opinion on the merits.

And if you are the hedge owner, remember that the council can do the work itself if a notice is not complied with and recover what it spends from you, and that failing to comply is a criminal offence. An appeal made in time is the proper way to challenge a notice you think is wrong. Ignoring one is not.

See also our full guide to high hedges, which covers the complaint itself and what a remedial notice can require, and our page on planning appeal timescales if you want to see how this deadline compares with the others.

 

 

Relevant legislation for a high hedges appeal

 

Links below go to legislation.gov.uk. Always check the “Changes to Legislation” panel at the top of each provision, because amendments are often listed there before they are written into the text.

• Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, section 71: the right of appeal, who may appeal, the 28 days and the power to allow a longer period
• Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, section 69: remedial notices, the date one takes effect, and the two limits on what can be required
• Anti-social Behaviour Act 2003, section 73: what the appeal authority may do, and what happens to the date the notice takes effect
• High Hedges (Appeals) (England) Regulations 2005: the grounds of appeal, how to appeal, and how the appeal is handled

Other Planning Appeal Sections

 

High Hedges Appeal Page Updated: 14th August 2026