Ancient Woodland
Irreplaceable habitat protected by planning policy
Ancient woodland is land continuously wooded since 1600 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, or 1750 in Scotland. The status attaches to the land, not to the age of the trees, which are often felled and regrown. It carries no designation of its own, and each nation maps it on an Ancient Woodland Inventory.
What This Means
Nothing about the house itself is restricted: gardening, repairs and internal work carry on as normal. Planning policy treats ancient woodland as irreplaceable habitat. In England, permission should be refused unless there are wholly exceptional reasons and a compensation strategy exists. Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland apply comparably strict tests. So the wood itself is unlikely to be built on, though only the woodland and its edge are protected. If the wood is inside your own boundary, felling trees in it normally needs a licence. This does not normally affect mortgage approval, buildings insurance or resale.
Practical Advice
- Ask the local planning authority's tree officer whether a Tree Preservation Order or conservation area also covers these trees.
- Ask the Forestry Commission in England, or Scottish Forestry, Natural Resources Wales or DAERA Forest Service, whether your felling needs a licence.
- Ask the local planning authority how close to the woodland it will allow you to build before you draw up an extension.
- Ask your surveyor to report on the mature trees nearest the house and any subsidence risk they pose.
Key Points
- In England, planning standing advice seeks a buffer of at least 15 metres between new development and the woodland boundary. An extension inside that buffer is assessed for root damage.
- Ancient woodland covers roughly 2.5 per cent of the UK land area, around 610,000 hectares.
- Bluebells, wood anemone and wild service trees are indicator plants, and ecologists use their presence as part of the evidence that a wood is ancient.
Additional Information
The inventory maps woods from historic records, so its boundaries are provisional and revised as evidence improves. It is drawn for strategic use, not for a single plot. The local planning authority's ecologist holds the boundary actually used to decide applications. The planning advice linked here is England's; the other nations publish their own.