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Update: Had a chat with the tree officer over the phone (he picked up after a month of not doing so). He said my reasons for wanting to prune are not justifiable to grant any work on the tree. All the cleaning up after the trees on the driveway, root damage to driveway, mess on the cars you have to put up with - they're not good enough reasons to warrant granting work. Only if a building is being damaged would I grant work. Even if a shed were being damaged i wouldn't grant work.... so no. I asked could even minimal low level branches on the trees on the left - he said no, they're young trees and would cause stress. I said not even minimal work with your guidance? He said if you're allowed to cut one branch you might say i want to cut this and that too - i said we would do minimal work with your guidance, so can we compromise - he said no. I said i'm using an accredited tree surgeon and we can do work with your guidance - he said it's their job to cut trees, mine to protect, so no. He said you can try to appeal but your reasons probably won't be good enough (I said cars and driveway are a mess, so couldn't the minimal work even on the trees on the extreme left and right to alleviate this be allowed - he said no). He said there are trees on my street that affect my car, i wouldnt expect them to be cut down for that reason. I said theyre not my trees, I couldnt cut them down if i wanted to, so can we compromise - he said no. Slightly unrelated but adding to my frustrations with the lack of empathy.... In the past a dead silver birch dropped a branch where i was stood 2 minutes before in another part of my rear garden (i was constantly clearing dead branches for a while until the housing association neighbour removed it). I caught it on camera and was quite shocked considering the crash it made. I called the tree officer to help get the housing association to take action. When i told the tree officer about it and tried to show the video he wasnt interested, He said you could cross the road and two minutes later a car goes past, it doesnt mean you were in danger. A dead tree constantly dropping sizeable branches in a constantly used walkway in my garden cant be compared to crossing the road can it?! I was quickly losing patience with no compromise or understanding from the tree officer so hastily said ok, bye and put the phone down. I am planning to meet as many local councillors as I can in the hope that they can offer support in rejecting the TPO - I even said can you allow some work and then I wont have to appeal it, I can appreciate the amenity but just want to alleviate the practical problems - he said no.

Thank you for your replies @Anno & @AA Teccie (Paul), the advice is much appreciated! The two housing associations on whose land the trees are (there is a boundary towards the left hand side), have done little to no maintenance on the trees over the last 10 years apart from some low height pruning back. I had to get the previous Tree Protection Officer/local MPs and even the Housing Association CEO involved to get anything done (there is another group of protected trees that were in contact with our outbuilding in the back garden that were lifted after years of hassle). I now wanted to alleviate the problem these trees are giving (they make an absolute mess of the cars and driveway underneath) with some pruning (I can accept perhaps not to the boundary line) but this has become immeasurably more difficult now because of the proposed TPO. My concerns are the tree surgeon has also said that the Tree Protection Officer is very "strict" and is likely to refuse any proposed pruning. The previous tree officer has visited several times and said we don't really put TPOs on these types of trees and was relaxed saying you can prune back but ensuring the trees remain safe which is absolutely fair. On what basis can I appeal the TPO? I can appreciate the amenity value but on a practical "living with the trees" basis they are difficult.

Hi, first time poster hoping for some advice.... To summarise, a council Tree Protection Officer visited my house at the start of July 2023 - i asked for him to confirm whether a group (i think 3-5) of scots pine trees overhanging our drive are still unprotected (they are situated on a Housing Association land next door). I want to get them cut back as much as possible to the boundary line due to the amount of material falling on mine and my neighbours cars and driveway. A year or two back the Tree Officers predecessor visited and said they were not protected and showed me the Tree Map confirming this. The housing association won't do anything despite me asking repeatedly over the last 5 years - they said the trees are safe according to a survey and they are not legally obliged to do anything, so any overhang must be cut back by us at our cost (as an aside I don't think this is fair but have no way of arguing this) The new tree officer who visited in July initially thought they were protected. I told him your predecessor says they were not on his visit a year or two back, and the TPO map on the council website says they are not. After I showed him the map he agreed and said they are not, but upon leaving he said something along the lines of "oh i should put an order on them" About 3 weeks later a tree surgeon visited, i asked him to cut the trees back. He said he would check with the council/tree officer to get in writing that they weren't protected, even though I told him the officer visited and said they weren't, and the map says they aren't protected. The tree surgeon emailed the tree officer and asked if they were, and he said yes! - that there was a blanket TPO so an application must be put in - an application was therefore put in at the end of July for pruning works . I told the tree surgeon there isn't any protection order on them so i dont understand the tree officer's response. Over August I emailed, phoned, and text the tree officer many times (i have the records) asking him to confirm the tree are not protected - going off what he himself said and what the tree maps says. I received no response and all my voicemails and email were ignored. Then today I received a letter which my dad says he posted himself saying there is a provisional tree protection order in place blanketing all of the trees! I feel like he ignored all my messages asking him to confirm in writing that the trees are not protected (which they were not), just so he could apply the tree protection order. Is the tree protection officer within his rights to do this? Many thanks