Highton
Tree removal in Highton
Tree removal, pruning and stump grinding in Highton, on blocks that fall toward the Barwon and in streets the City has planted.
Tree work in Highton
Gullies, river slopes and a landscape overlay
In the Wandana Structure Plan area, the land between Barrabool Road, Scenic Road, the Barwon River and the bypass alignment, the planning scheme requires lot densities that have regard to steep topography, with no more than three roads crossing the gullies. Trees on those slopes can sit well above or below the street, so a platform may not set up level and the tree is climbed and rigged instead.
On the Mount Brandon Peninsula, inside the Barwon River corridor and Buckley Falls Park, Significant Landscape Overlay Schedule 4 requires a permit to remove, destroy or lop any vegetation, apart from listed exceptions such as dead vegetation and environmental weeds. Where it reaches a private lot, the tree is checked against the schedule before it is quoted.
Along the Barwon River corridor more widely, the Rivers of the Barwon overlay requires a permit to remove, destroy or lop vegetation unless an exemption applies, such as the vegetation being under all three size limits for height, canopy and trunk, the trunk limit being a trunk diameter of less than 0.4 metres.
Sources: Development Plan Overlay, Wandana Structure Plan Area, Greater Geelong Planning Scheme (retrieved 14/10/2026); Significant Landscape Overlay, Mt Brandon Peninsula, Greater Geelong Planning Scheme (retrieved 14/10/2026); Significant Landscape Overlay, Rivers of the Barwon, Greater Geelong Planning Scheme (retrieved 14/10/2026)
Services in Highton
Steep blocks and street trees
Tree removal
Climbed and rigged down where the slope keeps a platform from setting up level.
Stump grinding
Stumps ground out on sloping blocks, with the grinder walked in where a truck cannot reach.
Tree pruning
Limbs cut back from roofs and gutters, with any overlay on the title checked first.
What it costs: tree removal cost, stump grinding cost
Compared: removal, lopping or pruning, stump grinding or stump removal, council tree rules compared
How it works
From the first call to a clear garden
Nothing happens without a written quote you have agreed to.
Tell us about the tree
Call or send the form with the tree and what is worrying you.
A contractor comes to see it
A local tree contractor looks at the tree, the access and whatever sits underneath it, because a quote off a photo misses the things that change the job.
A written quote
The quote sets out the scope, what happens to the timber and the stump, and the date. It is the contractor's quote, and nothing starts until you accept it.
The work and the clean up
On the day the tree is dealt with as quoted, the green waste leaves on the truck and the lawn is raked.
Highton questions
The City's pears and robinias
Whose are the flowering pears on the nature strips?
The City's. Among the street trees in the City of Greater Geelong's public tree dataset, Highton holds 442 of the 1,276 upright flowering pears, more than a third of the City's total. Pruning or removing one is a request to council, and private work behind one is set up to keep machinery clear of its crown and roots.
What about the golden robinias?
Highton has a lot of those too. Counting only street trees, the City's dataset places 199 of the 619 golden robinias in Highton, close to a third of the City's total. They are council trees as well, and robinia roots can sucker when they are cut or damaged, so stump grinding or digging near one is done with that in mind.
