clearance
Garden clearance
£150 to £300 clears a small garden and £300 to £600 a medium one, before any London loading. A plot left alone for years runs £600 to £2,000. Volume of waste sets the figure, not the size of the garden it came out of.
What this covers
What it costs. £150 to £300 covers a small garden clearance, £300 to £600 a medium one, and £600 to £2,000 where a plot has been left badly overgrown. Full cost breakdown.
What the job covers
- Clearing an overgrown garden back to ground
- Cutting down brambles, nettles and scrub
- Taking out old sheds, fencing and rubble
- Separating green waste from everything else
- Leaving the ground ready for what comes next
Worth knowing
Transporting controlled waste in the course of business without being registered is a criminal offence. In England and Wales the fine is unlimited; in Northern Ireland it is capped at £5,000.
Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989; DAERA carrier registration guidance
What is involved
Clearance runs in two halves: cutting down, then carting out. Brambles, nettles and self seeded sycamore come back with a brushcutter and loppers, get stacked, then go through a chipper if there is room to bring one in. Roots are the decision point. Leaving a bramble crown in the ground means it is back by August, while digging it out or treating the regrowth in autumn is what actually finishes the job. A quote that skips this is quoting a tidy up.
Disposal is usually the single biggest line. Removal is charged by volume at roughly £60 to £120 a cubic metre, or by skip: £90 to £150 for a mini, £150 to £250 for a midi, £200 to £350 for a builder's, plus £30 to £60 for a council permit once it stands on the road. What goes into the load changes the paperwork. Cuttings the gardener produced sit under a free lower tier waste carrier registration in England and Wales, numbered CBDL. Add soil, old turf, slabs, fence panels or anything you bagged yourself and upper tier is required, numbered CBDU at £191.02 to set up. Scotland works differently: SEPA registers carriers by activity with no tier split, and moved everyone onto EASR registration on 1 November 2025.
Structures are priced separately. A shed comes out at £150 to £500, decking at £200 to £700, a concrete base at £300 to £1,000. Access governs the rest. A garden reached only through the house means every load travels down a hallway on dust sheets, which can double the labour against a side gate wide enough for a barrow.
Choosing someone for the job
Waste carrier registration number first, then check it on the public register, which is free and takes a minute. Are the roots coming out, or only the green above ground? One finishes the job and the other postpones it. Disposal belongs in the quote as its own figure, priced by volume. Shed, decking and fence removal are separate lines, so what exactly is included?
Common questions
Why is clearance priced by volume rather than by area?
Because disposal dominates the cost and tips charge by the load. A small garden buried under six foot brambles fills more van space than a large tidy one does. Expect £60 to £120 a cubic metre for removal.
Does the gardener need a licence to take the waste?
A waste carrier registration, yes. Green arisings from their own work are covered by the free lower tier registration in England and Wales. Soil, turf, slabs or waste you produced yourself need upper tier at £191.02, so check the number starts CBDU if any of that is going.