Amend your tree felling licence

If you want to make changes to your tree felling licence, you will need to apply for an amendment to your licence. This only applies to all felling licence applications that were received on or after 1 April 2024.

You can apply to make two types of changes to your tree felling licence:

an administrative change
a technical change

If your tree felling licence has been amended by us, find out why your licence has been amended and how to appeal.

Apply for an administrative amendment to your licence

You can apply for an administrative change to your tree felling licence if you are changing the:

licence holders name or address
licence holders trading name
registered name of a company or registered office address
licence holders have gone into administration
company has a voluntary arrangement or is closing down
death of any of the licence holders (if the licence holders consist of more than one named individual)
licence holders are going into bankruptcy
licence holders are entering into an agreement or arrangement with creditors
licence holders are dissolving the partnership

You will need to apply to us within the following timescales:

operational sites - within 14 days of the change
non-operational sites – 28 days before starting the works

We aim to acknowledge receipt of your amendment application form within three working days.

If we receive all the information correctly, we will aim to complete the administrative change (schedule A) to your licence within 10 working days. We will issue an amendment notice when the change has been made to the licence.

You will need to supply evidence to support the amendment request, this may be evidence for the change of ownership.

You can find more information on requesting amendments to the felling licence.

Apply for a technical change to your licence

In exceptional circumstances we will consider requests to make a technical amendment to an approved felling licence.

All technical changes to your licence must follow the relevant environmental legislation and UK Forest Standard.

We will consider requests to amend a tree felling licence if you need to:

remove, add, or amend an environmental condition. As a holder of an approved Felling Licence, you may request to have an environmental condition added or varied from the Licence.
make minor changes to a felling area
make minor changes to tree numbers and/or volume
minor amendment to the tree species, which falls in line with UK Forest Standard
Changes in objectives that mitigate challenges from the climate and nature emergencies
extend the duration of the felling period, to a maximum of two felling seasons
extend a restocking deadline if there have been exceptional weather conditions
Amendments to conditions for the benefit of species and habitats

We may not allow the following:

removal of conditions where the site situation has not changed since the application was considered and approved
the inclusion of an area that would not have been approved as part of the initial licence application

You may need to supply the following documents:

new felling or restocking maps, as appropriate
any ecological or site surveys produced to support the amendment request, as appropriate

If you wish to request an amendment to your licence, you will need to read this detailed guidance.

We will acknowledge receipt of your amended application form within three working days.

If we receive all the information correctly, we will aim to complete the technical change (schedule B) to your licence within 60 working days. This will be subject to the complexity of the amendment request.

If we amend your licence, we will issue you an amendment notice, which sets out the changes to your licence.

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