This price does sound a bit excessive and you would be well advised to obtain several other quotes to help benchmark these costs. I recently paid £450 to have six 30 feet Scots Pine trees topped following the recent high winds in March/April. Granted it didn’t include complete clearance which I elected to do myself but even so another £1,000 should have dealt with this. Then there would be extra costs in grubbing up the roots and overall clearance of the remaining elements of the site. With skips, machine hire (plus delivery and collection) and VAT on the whole sum, you can see how costs could get up to and beyond £5,000. It’s difficult to comment further without seeing the site and properly working out what is actually involved but it sounds as if your instincts are probably correct.

Tim Doherty (Build It expert and MD at Dobanti Chartered Surveyors)