Apply for a felling licence
To help protect Britain's forests, a felling licence from the Forestry Commission is required to fell trees. However, trees in private gardens are exempt from this control.
A felling licence is required for the felling of relatively small volumes of wood (5 cubic metres may be felled in any calendar quarter without a licence, as long as no more than 2 are sold). It is an offence to fell trees without a licence if an exemption does not apply. The overall process is described on the Forestry Commission’s web pages.