The Medway Hedge Standard.
Every hedge business says it does a "proper job." Here is what that actually means on the ground in Chatham and the Medway towns, and the timeline we hold ourselves to across the year.
The ground is not the same as an inland town
Much of Chatham sits on heavy Thames-Medway estuarine clay: it holds water through the winter, then cracks hard in a dry summer. A hedge planted for a chalk-soil town further inland can sit badly here, waterlogged roots in January, drought stress in August. Up on Walderslade and Chatham Hill the ground rises onto chalk-influenced North Downs soil, closer to what you'd find in the Kent Downs proper, a different growing pattern again within the same town.
The estuary changes what a hedge can take
Gardens along the waterside, Chatham Maritime, St Mary's Island, the lower reaches of Gillingham, take salt-laden wind directly off the Medway estuary. That wind browns the seaward face of an exposed conifer hedge faster than the equivalent hedge set back a mile inland, and it stresses tender new growth after a cut. We plant and stage reductions with that exposure in mind rather than pretending every garden in ME4 faces the same conditions.
The standard, in short
- Species and staging matched to estuary exposure or inland clay, not a single generic approach
- Nesting season (1 March – 31 August) respected on every job, checked before cutting inside the window
- Conservation-area notice filed for any stem over 75mm where the address requires it
- Fixed price agreed before work starts, no day-rate creep
- All arisings cleared, licensed disposal, nothing burned on site
The conservation areas around the Dockyard and Rochester
Parts of Chatham close to the Historic Dockyard sit inside a Medway Council conservation area, and so does much of neighbouring Rochester's historic core. Under section 211 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, any tree with a stem over 75mm diameter at 1.5m height inside a conservation area needs six weeks' written notice to the council before pruning. We check this against the address before quoting, and file the notice as part of the job where it applies, no extra charge, no chasing on your part.
The nesting season closes off five months by law
Under the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1, it is a criminal offence to damage or destroy an active wild bird's nest. The main season runs 1 March to 31 August. Outside that window we cut freely; inside it, only after a competent visual check confirms no active nest. "I didn't check" carries no weight as a defence, and it shouldn't, since checking takes minutes. See our season-by-season calendar for how this plays out across a full year in Chatham.
Why a timeline, not a checklist
A hedge is not a one-off job, it is a recurring commitment tied to the calendar, the species, and sometimes a multi-year plan (a staged leylandii reduction, a formal boundary dispute). That is why every guide on this site is organised around a timeline rather than a flat list, the order things happen in matters as much as the individual steps. See our staged leylandii reduction guide for a worked example across two winters.
Want the standard applied to your hedge?
Send a postcode and a couple of photos to hello@chathamhedges.co.uk or call 07763 100 477. Same-day quote in most cases.
Sources: Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981, section 1; Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 211; Medway Council conservation area guidance; RHS hedge-cutting seasonality guidance.