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What it costs
Almost nobody in this industry publishes a price. Here is ours, what the wider market charges, and — more usefully — which documents you can avoid paying for altogether.
BS5837 tree survey and tree constraints plan — from £395. Covers the site visit, the survey schedule and the constraints plan drawing. This is the document most planning applications need.
Arboricultural impact assessment — from £345. Commissioned alongside or after a survey, it tests your specific proposals against the trees on site.
Method statement and tree protection plan — from £145 when taken with a survey or assessment.
Those are entry prices for a small, straightforward site. Most domestic jobs land between that and about £900 once the tree count and access are known. We confirm a fixed figure within one working day of your enquiry, before any work starts, and we do not revise it once the survey is underway. If your site is bigger or more wooded than average the number will be higher — you will just know that before you commit, rather than afterwards.
Published entry prices from national consultancies run from roughly £249 to £349, which usually buys a minimal survey on a small, simple site. Typical real-world fees for a residential project of 0.1 to 0.5 hectares with ten to thirty trees run £600 to £1,200 for a standalone survey, or £800 to £1,800 for a survey packaged with a constraints plan and impact assessment.
Larger or commercial sites with dense tree cover commonly run £1,500 to £4,000 and up. Method statements and protection plans add £500 to £1,500 where they are charged separately.
Hourly rates for a qualified arboriculturist sit around £75 to £120, with day rates of roughly £450 to £800.
The number of trees, not the size of the site. A small garden with fifteen mature trees costs more to survey than an open acre with three.
Access. Steep ground, dense understorey, locked neighbouring gardens and overhead lines all add site time.
Which documents your authority wants. This is the biggest single lever, and the one most people never check. A validation checklist asking for a survey alone is a fraction of the cost of one demanding survey, impact assessment, protection plan and method statement together.
Protected trees. A TPO or conservation area adds a separate consent application on top.
Find your authority's validation checklist before you commission anything, and buy only what is on it. Method statements and protection plans are very often conditioned rather than required at application, which means they can wait until after you have permission — and sometimes until you know the scheme is going ahead at all.
Get the survey done before the design is finished. It costs the same either way, but it stops you paying an architect twice.
And be wary of a quote that is materially cheaper than everything around it. The saving is usually a desk study dressed up as a survey, and planning officers recognise those on sight.
Because sites vary and a headline figure invites arguments. We publish anyway, because being told a number is the thing most people actually want, and we would rather have the argument up front than waste your afternoon.
Yes. We quote a fixed fee from your site details before anything starts. If the site turns out to be materially different from what was described we will tell you before we proceed, not afterwards on the invoice.
No. Telling you which documents you actually need is free, including when the honest answer is that you need less than you thought.
Tell us about the site and we will come back with a fixed fee and a date. No charge for asking, and no charge for being told you need less than you thought.