Tree felling NSW bushfire district laws tightened for property owners

The Baird NSW state government has been forced to tighten vegetation clearing rules in fire-prone areas.

Within four months of their introduction, NSW parliamentarians had been inundated with complaints about unnecessary culling of trees, with a campaign headlined by 2GB's gardening clinic broadcaster, Graham Ross.

Residents using the new 10/50 rule had been cutting down trees to improve their view or allow further development.

The laws introduced on 1 August allowed residents whose homes were in designated bushfire-prone areas to clear trees within 10 metres, and shrubs and vegetation within 50 metres of houses.

Residents will now be only permitted to clear trees within 30 metres and vegetation to 100 metres.

The NSW Rural Fire Service has been asked to further review the 10/50 Vegetation Clearing Entitlement policy with the Department of Planning and Environment.

The 10/50 code allowed the clearing of trees without council permission.

Heritage-listed trees in Blue Mountains villages have been felled.

Councils are concerned the 10/50 rule overrides the Threatened Species Conservation Act and tree preservation orders.

Some 20 rural and metropolitan councils had lodged submissions with the Rural Fire Service protesting environmental damage being done under cover of the new rule.

After a public outcry, the RFS agreed to review the laws, then receiving more than 1200 submissions. But with no moratorium on the laws until the review had finished, a protest outside Premier Mike Baird's office early last month secured the revised 30/100 rule.