Removing Trees Across the North Shore

When a tree has to come out

Most removals we quote on the North Shore fall into four groups. The tree is dead or so far into decline that nothing brings it back. The tree has a structural defect — a cracked co-dominant union, a hollowed butt, a lifting root plate on the windward side — that pruning does not fix. The tree is fundamentally in the wrong place, usually a fast-growing exotic planted in the sixties or seventies that is now hard against a footing, a sewer line or a pool shell. Or a development approval requires it.

What is not a reason on its own is height. A forty-metre blackbutt at Pymble that has stood through sixty years of southerlies is not dangerous because it is tall. If a tree can be kept, we will say so, because the council usually agrees and the application will be refused anyway.

How the work is actually done

Very few North Shore blocks allow a straight fell. There is a house, a pool, a glasshouse, a neighbour's colorbond fence, or the tree is on the downhill side of a gully where the only clear drop zone is somebody else's roof.

The default method is a climbing dismantle. The climber ascends on rope, sections the canopy from the outside in, and each piece is rigged and lowered under control. Larger stems are then blocked down in rounds. Where there is driveway access and the ground will carry it, an elevated work platform speeds the job up considerably — but on the ridge suburbs, with 1930s single-width driveways and sandstone retaining walls, the platform often cannot get in and the job stays a climb. Occasionally a crane lift off the street is the cheapest option for a very large tree in an impossible spot; that requires traffic management and council road-occupancy approval.

Permits come first

Tree removal across Ku-ring-gai, Willoughby, Hornsby, Lane Cove and the City of Ryde is controlled through each council's development control plan. The thresholds, the exempt species lists and the distance-from-dwelling rules all differ between them, and Ku-ring-gai and Willoughby are the strictest. Where a tree forms part of a remnant of Blue Gum High Forest or Sydney Turpentine-Ironbark Forest, both critically endangered, the bar is higher again.

Some owners on bushfire-prone land assume the 10/50 vegetation clearing entitlement covers them. The entitlement area was cut back sharply in 2015 and much of the North Shore now sits outside it, so check the Rural Fire Service tool before relying on it rather than after.

We will identify the species, tell you which control applies, and where a permit or an arborist report is needed, tell you that before you are committed to anything.

After the removal

The site is chipped and raked and the green waste leaves with the truck. The stump stays unless you deal with it — grinding is enough for turf or garden, while full stump removal is what a builder needs before footings go in. If the tree is one of several, it is often worth reducing rather than removing the rest, which is a lopping or pruning conversation.

Ring (02) 9090 4915 for a free quote. The cost guide sets out what moves the price, and the removal background page covers palms, pines and emergency work.