The short answer
No. A tree on the verge, in a park, on a reserve or in a road corridor is council property, and you have no right to prune, remove, poison or otherwise interfere with it. That holds even when it overhangs your land, drops leaves into your gutters, or was planted by your grandfather.
This is genuinely different from the position between private neighbours, where a right of abatement exists. Public vegetation sits under a separate regime, and councils enforce it.
Why councils care so much
Street trees are managed assets. They cool the streets, hold the soil, filter stormwater and are worth measurable money to property values along the street. In a city like Wollongong, where the canopy also buffers salt-laden onshore wind and helps stabilise ground below the escarpment, they do more work than they get credit for.
Councils value them formally, using amenity valuation methods that produce five-figure numbers for a mature specimen. That number is what gets recovered when someone quietly removes one to improve a view.
The things people do that get noticed
Gradual reduction — taking a bit more each year and hoping nobody compares photographs. Councils have aerial imagery going back decades.
Root cutting during a driveway or fence job, which shows up as crown dieback a season later.
Poisoning. Drill and fill, or repeated applications around the base. It is obvious to anyone who knows what they are looking at, it is deliberate destruction of public property, and it is the version councils pursue hardest.
Getting a contractor to do it. No reputable tree contractor will touch a council tree without a council work order, and being told "it's fine, I've sorted it with council" is not a defence for anybody.
What to do instead
Lodge a customer request with your council — Wollongong City, Shellharbour City or Kiama Municipal depending on your suburb. Get a reference number. Include photographs and a factual description focused on risk, obstruction or contact with a structure rather than on preference.
Councils will generally prune for clearance from buildings, remove dead and hazardous limbs, clear footpaths, roadways and sightlines, and act on a structurally failing tree. They generally will not remove a healthy tree for leaf litter, shade, views or solar access. The council tree overhang guide covers the process and the escalation routes in more detail.
If it is genuinely dangerous
Say so, clearly, in the request. A cracked union, a hanging limb, a lean that has changed, or visible fungal fruiting bodies at the base are all things worth naming specifically, because they get triaged differently from routine maintenance.
An independent arborist report carries real weight if council has assessed the tree and you disagree. It costs money, and it is the only thing that reliably reopens a closed request.
Your own trees
Everything inside your boundary is a different question, though still not an unrestricted one — tree preservation controls apply on private land too, and the approval guide explains how that works. For pruning or removal on your side of the fence, ring (02) 4210 5885.
Frequently asked questions
I planted the tree on my verge. Is it mine?
No. The verge is road reserve, which is public land under council control, and anything growing on it becomes council's asset regardless of who put it there or who has maintained it. Plenty of Illawarra street trees were planted by residents in the 1960s. They are still council trees, and the same rules apply to them as to everything else on the verge.
What are the penalties for damaging a council tree?
Penalties for damaging or removing protected and public vegetation in New South Wales run to substantial amounts, and councils can also require replacement planting and recover the assessed amenity value of the tree, which on a mature specimen is a large number. Councils in this region do investigate reports, and neighbours do report.
Can I trim a council tree if it is touching my roof?
Report it rather than cut it. A branch in contact with a building is exactly the sort of thing councils will act on, because it is a genuine conflict rather than a preference. Lodge a request with photographs showing the contact point and get a reference number. If it is urgent — a limb resting on the roof after a storm — say that explicitly.