Does anyone know what the law is re landlords felling trees on their properties land? I’m talking private landlords. The trees in question very possibly have roosting bats and sustain a large amount of wildlife from roosting long tailed tits, jays, red wings and black caps. I have appealed to the landowner but is there anything else I can do? The trees are not causing subsidence or blocking light. He just wants to "tidy up. Thanks.
Three points:
A property owner can (and must) maintain his trees by pruning and pollarding where required.
The owner must abide by rules such as Tree Protection Orders (register maintained by local authorities) and any wildlife acts which may apply. There is a Tree Officer at Lewisham council who can advise. Lewisham does not publish its tree register.
If you have evidence, for example, that bats are roosting in the trees or environs then the owner would have very onerous obligations which would have to be rigidly adhered to.
The owner would not be able to undertake any action that would even simply disturb the bats and would be further obliged to engage bat specialists to advise on what would be required. Obviously hard evidence that bats are in fact present would be required.
I think the council has a tree department you can contact.
on the one hand - property owners can do pretty much what they like with privately owned trees on private land. HOwever, on the other hand, as anon5183jd has said, there are rules, regulations, legal acts of parliament, etc which protect wildlife - so tree preservation orders, Bat protection, birds nest protection etc apply equally to private trees on private land as to any tree on any land.
I would contact Lewisham tree officer, and/or local tree specialist, or conservation/wildlife expert, or even Citizens Advice Bureau for expert advice.
If the landlord is engaging a tree surgeon, or arborist to do the work, they will hopefully be fully aware of any legislation, and won’t do anything illegal.
Many trees in London (other urban areas may be substituted) are only there out of neglect in the first place, the majority are ash and sycamore which are wind blown weeds, a few oaks may be planted by squirrels. Unless you have a massive garden in Dulwich village these trees are inappropriate for the space available, they are forest trees. Other species including eucalyptus and leylandii are also planted with little regard for their rapid growth and eventual huge size. I love trees and have planted many hundreds in my lifetime but there should be careful consideration for the space they are to live in for them and their future custodians. I had a 60foot eucalyptus in our garden (25foot) when I moved into our small terrace house, I had no qualms at all about cutting it down. I then planted a small cherry tree on a dwarfing rootstock, even this I have to prune to stop it getting out of hand. Yes, plant appropriate trees but dig up the inappropriate saplings before they get too big
Thanks for that insight - the gardens here are very big luckily.
The trees are ash and sycamore however, due to their thick ivy cover in parts, they have become host to bats and many nesting birds who use the ivy to their advantage.
Because of these trees we have gold crests, blackcaps, long tailed tits, coal tits, great and blue tits, robins, blackbirds, jays, goldfinches, green and great spotted woodpeckers, collared doves, wrens, dunnocks, bats and redwings in winter. It is astonishing how much lives these trees support.
Thank you - the only evidence I have is seeing them come out of and go into the ivy on the trees and detected them on my bat detector.
I wrote a letter to the landlord and he has agreed not to cut them down - they don’t even need pollarding, which is great news.
Well done @Rebecca_Headd, great to hear some good news about trees in Lewisham for a change. 
That’s brilliant news, well done. Our neighbours had an ivy-covered tree that came down in the Easter storm last year (or possibly the year before) The collared doves and robins used the ivy every year for nesting and sat around looking very forlorn when they discovered the tree gone.
Thought I was heading for deep water when you mentioned a bat detector.
I thought, is @Rebecca_Headd teasing us here - could there be such a thing as a bat detector - and all I could see were images from the old Batman TV series with a Batcave stuffed full of gadgets !
But hey - yes you can get a bat detector app for your iPhone - and I’m gonna load it up and find somewhere to try it !
Whilst doing a check on Lewisham’s effectiveness in responding to FOI’s in a timely and complete fashion, I came across a July 2017 response by the authority in which they attached a Tree Protection Register.
The document is in XLS format and does not appear via their web-site.
But obtainable via FOI seems feasible.
It appears less than complete.
Note to @anon5422159 would it be possible to add the XLS format to those list of file type that can be uploaded please.
Thank you to CB for amending the list - and here is the file:
TPO.xls (190 KB)
Done.