Judge takes 12,000 words to clarify the meaning of tree

A High Court judge, Mr Justice Cranston, has taken 12,000 words to answer the question: What is a tree? The judge thought it necessary to spell out the exact legal definition of a tree because of confusion in the planning process.

While trees could obviously be the object of tree preservation orders, the question remained about the status of saplings. For clarity the judge ruled that size did not matter, and that the smallest sapling was, legally speaking, a tree.

His conclusion clashes with that of Lord Denning, a former Master of the Rolls, who ruled that a tree was only a tree if its trunk had a diameter of at least seven inches.



In opening his judgment Mr Justice Cranston said: "What is a tree? In particular does it include a young tree, a sapling?" He continued: "On one occasion Lord Denning said emphatically that many saplings were not trees and that in woodland a tree was something over seven or eight inches, 180 to 200mm, in diameter."

The issue arose in the case on which he was ruling, because while section 198 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 provided for tree preservation orders (TPOs) to preserve trees, groups of trees and woodlands, he said that there was "no statutory definition of a tree". He concluded that "with tree preservation orders there are no limitations in terms of size for what is to be treated as a tree. In other words, saplings are trees".

The case was brought by Palm Developments Ltd who had challenged a Government decision to not allow works in a young patch of woodland in North Halling, by the River Medway in Kent.