CHESHIRE West and Chester Council is celebrating National Tree Week – November 24-December 2 – by unveiling new interactive mapping on its website.

You can find out if a tree in a garden has a preservation order and whether you live in a conservation area.

The link is www.cheshirewestandchester. gov.uk/preservationorders.

In addition, the council has completed phase one of a review of tree preservation orders in the borough, bringing together systems from the three former districts.

This has been set up electronically, so that all applications for works to trees are accessible via the on-line planning system.

There are approximately 1,090 confirmed Tree preservation orders and an application to carry out works to a protected tree normally takes up to eight weeks to decide.

In the year 2011-2012 – April to March – there were 521 tree works applications processed.

There are about 91 conservation areas in the borough with 60 being in the old Chester district.

Trees growing in conservation areas have the same general protection afforded as a tree preservation order would confer and therefore works to trees in conservation areas are subject to the same planning rules ie a planning application must be submitted prior to works being undertaken.

The council has up to six weeks to decide whether the proposal is acceptable.

There is an online facility to enable residents to establish whether their property is within a conservation area and the new tree preservation order facility completes a customer’s ability to search online at:

www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk/conservationarea.