We ensure a safe, functional and visually appealing roadside environment for all residents and visitors by strictly controlling the planting and maintenance of trees that line our streets and parks.
Please note it's illegal to remove or prune any trees, shrubs or other plants without our approval in the following locations:
- Council-managed streets
- any nature strip, including your own
- public parks.
To reduce risk to the public, we arrange for tree specialists to assess the sturdiness and health of our trees at least once every two years.
Our tree professionals judge each tree against industry best practices and, if necessary, prune the tree to ensure it grows properly and keeps clear of power lines.
If you're concerned about a tree that appears to be a potential hazard, contact us on 03 9217 2170.
Why we minimise tree pruning
Unless a tree is within two metres of a built structure, pruning is unlikely to provide enough relief from the perceived nuisance of falling leaves, flowers or fruit. It's uncommon for branches that overhang a property to cause personal damage except under storm conditions, and we will not prune trees to eliminate a perceived danger.
We try to minimise tree pruning because:
- it wounds the tree and exposes it to attack by insects, pests and diseases
- over-pruning can reduce the life span of a tree
- our two-year cyclic pruning program ensures we provide the majority of residents with timely customer service.
Tree pruning clearance
Here is a guide to the tree clearances outlined in our Street Tree Management Plan that we aim towards when we conduct tree pruning on nature strip and street trees across the City of Whittlesea.
| Type of location |
Clearance |
| Electrical line clearances (H.V. and L.V.) and service wires |
Maintain the clearances as per the Electrical Line Clearance Management Plan. |
| Local roads |
4m (rural roadsides as required - 1m behind back of kerb) |
| Main roads |
4.3m |
| Driveways |
3.5m |
| Footpaths/walkways/nature strips |
2.5m |
| Motorists/pedestrian visibility |
2.5m |
| Road signage, lines of sight and traffic control devices |
Allow for driver and pedestrian visibility in accordance with VicRoads/Council sight clearance standards |
| Buildings on private property |
Maintain a 2m clearance through pruning cycle |
Downloads
Electric line clearance management plan 2024-2025(PDF, 4MB)
Electric line clearance management plan 2024-2025 (accessible)(DOCX, 10MB)
As it's difficult to establish new trees, we aim to keep as many existing trees as possible.
We receive more than 1,000 requests every year about perceived higher risk trees, with only around 5% of the requests resulting in tree removals. In these cases, the trees are usually dead or in the later stages of growing old. Often, the other 95% of requests do not require any works.
We don't remove trees if they are reported as:
- causing hayfever - most hayfever is caused by very small pollen originating from tall grass that has flowered and is carried through the air by the wind
- dropping too many leaves or fruit
- being too large.
A nature strip, street, or park tree will only be removed as a last resort, if it has been assessed by our trained tree professionals as posing a danger to the public and having faults that can’t be fixed. After we identify a tree for removal, we remove it as soon as possible based on the level of risk.
If you are concerned about a tree that appears to be a potential hazard, contact us on 03 9217 2170.
We maintain nature strip trees along with all other street trees across the City of Whittlesea.
Nature strip trees and drainage pipes
Under normal circumstances, we won't remove your nature strip tree, even if the tree roots are blocking a stormwater drainage pipe. This is because nature strip tree roots can only enter into damaged or poorly sealed stormwater pipes, which the property owner is responsible for maintaining, under our Local Laws.
To limit blockages from occurring, we recommend that you have a licensed plumber regularly clean out and test your stormwater connections.
This proactive maintenance will ensure that they are not leaking and that tree roots do not block pipes in the future.
Visit stormwater drainage for further information.
Request a nature strip tree
If you don't already have a tree on your nature strip, you can ask us to plant one for you.
Our officers will assess your nature strip and arrange for an appropriate tree to be planted from late autumn to early spring, depending on the seasonal weather patterns.
The tree species chosen will be selected to provide consistency with the existing nature strip trees in your street.
Request a new nature strip tree
Replacing nature strip trees in older suburbs
Our Street Tree Renewal Program is where we replace nature strip trees in the City of Whittlesea’s older established suburbs, to create a consistent tree theme for an entire street.
We follow these steps to renew a street’s nature strip trees.
- Identify appropriate streets to renew based on our staff’s observation or resident nominations.
- Prioritise streets based on whether they lack nature strip trees or have ageing trees.
- Ask residents if they support renewal of their street, and if so, ask them to choose their preferred tree type
- Remove existing trees that are inconsistent with the preferred tree type (regardless of their condition)
- Replant and maintain the preferred new trees.
You can nominate your street for nature strip tree renewal by calling us on 03 9217 2170