A fallen branch or a leaning tree after high winds needs a specific order of steps, starting with staying well away from it.
A tree or large branch that's come down in a storm, or is visibly cracked and leaning, is a different situation from a routine pruning job, and the first moves matter more than the last ones. Most of the actual risk in the first 24 hours isn't the tree falling further, it's people getting too close to a structure that's already unstable while trying to assess or clear it themselves.
Stay away from the tree itself and anything it's resting against, since a trunk or branch that looks stable can still be holding tension that releases suddenly once disturbed. If it's touching or near power lines, treat it as live and call your electricity network operator's emergency line immediately, not the tree surgeon first. If it's blocking a road or footpath, that's usually a matter for the council or, for a genuinely dangerous obstruction, the police, who can close the area until it's made safe.
A tree or branch that has already fallen, is visibly cracked through the trunk, or is leaning over a building, road, path or parked car counts as urgent and worth fast-tracking. A tree that's simply lost some smaller branches, looks untidy, or has dropped normal seasonal debris after wind can wait for a standard quote rather than an emergency callout, and treating it as urgent when it isn't just pushes genuinely dangerous jobs further down the queue for everyone.
Insurers generally want to see the damage as it was, not after it's been tidied away, so photograph the fallen tree, the point of failure if visible, and any damage to property or vehicles before a surgeon starts work, from a safe distance rather than up close. Note the date and time and roughly when the storm hit if you weren't home to see it fall. This matters more than people expect, since a claim without photographic evidence of the original state is harder to process cleanly.
A genuinely dangerous tree has a narrow exemption from needing prior consent even if it carries a TPO, covered in more detail in our guide to Tree Preservation Orders, but the exemption covers the minimum work necessary to remove the immediate danger, not a full removal or reshaping done at the same time simply because someone's already on site. Keep evidence of why the danger was genuine, since the exemption doesn't apply retroactively to work that turns out to have gone further than the emergency required.
Liability generally follows negligence rather than simple ownership: if the tree was healthy and came down in genuinely severe weather, that's usually treated as an act of nature rather than the neighbour's fault, but if it was already visibly diseased, dead or previously flagged as a risk, the owner can be liable for the damage. Either way, get the immediate danger made safe first and sort out liability and insurance afterwards, since arguing about responsibility while a tree is still unstable helps nobody.
Last reviewed 2026-07-21.
Mark your enquiry as urgent and we fast-track it. Many dangerous or storm-damaged trees can be made safe the same day, though a full removal sometimes needs a separate follow-up visit once the immediate danger is dealt with.
Only if it's safe and necessary to clear an access route, like a path to a door. Leave anything resting under tension, anything near power lines, and anything you'd need to climb on or near the damaged tree to reach, since that's exactly the kind of task that causes injuries in the aftermath of storms.
It's worth notifying them, particularly if any further work beyond the emergency safety measures is needed, since the emergency exemption only covers the immediate danger and anything more should go through the normal consent process afterwards.
What a TPO covers, how to check if your tree has one, and what happens if you cut a protected tree without consent.
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