Randwick City Council originally introduced a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) in 1986 in response to community concern that many trees were being lost through property development and indiscriminate tree felling. The TPO was revised in 2005.

The TPO benefits the environment and the local community by encouraging the planting and maintenance of trees, and improving their management.
The TPO covers most species of trees on private or public land within the Randwick area, including palm trees, cycads, tree ferns and bushland trees.

Under the TPO you may not:

• alter soil levels by more than 200 millimetres within three metres of the trunk of a tree
• ringbark, cut down, top, lop, prune, remove, poison, cut tree roots, transplant, destroy or injure a tree.

If you wish to make an application to prune/remove trees covered by Council's Tree Preservation Order or you have any doubts about the legality of any tree works you may wish to undertake, please contact Council's Call Centre before starting the work. If you remove, damage or prune a tree without Council consent you may be liable to serious fines ($110,000 in the Local Court, $1.1 million in the Land and Environment Court).

A number of noxious or invasive tree and shrub species are exempt from Council's Tree Preservation Order and a description and photographs of these Schedule 1 Species (pdf 7 Mb) is available for download.

We encourage the community to take an active role in implementing the TPO. If you suspect that someone has breached Council's Tree Preservation Order, please contact Council's Call Centre so that the matter may be properly investigated. All information will be treated in the strictest confidence and people are encouraged to report any such potentially illegal activity.
Click on the link below to see the full details of the Tree Preservation Order 2005.

• Tree Preservation Order (pdf 21kb)