Why Topping Hurts Arborists

[Steve Bullman]

Interesting article here

 

Why Topping Hurts Arborists - Tree Services

[Stubby]

Interesting article here

 

Why Topping Hurts Arborists - Tree Services

 

Explaining the perils of " tree experts " made me smile .

[Rob D]

Interesting article here

 

Why Topping Hurts Arborists - Tree Services

 

 

Good article - but in the real world? Most folk think of the summer coming up and the lack of light in their garden - they are just not intersted in looking 3 to 5 years in the future.

 

Education is the way to go - but not on someone's doorstep - a good tv type series with someone good looking and famous would do it

[Gary Prentice]

I posted a couple of years ago saying that topping will stop when an arb is found liable after an incident involving a lapsed topped tree.

 

A couple of members mocked me for it as a drama queen, but there has been at least one death resulting from a failure of regrowth from a topped tree, that I know about.

 

It will only take one ambulance chaser to pursue the avenue of negligence and bad practice for things to start to change.

 

But I'm not holding my breath:001_smile:

[Steve Bullman]

Think that would be a hard case for someone to win, but nothing would surprise me these days

 

 

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[WesD]

I posted a couple of years ago saying that topping will stop when an arb is found liable after an incident involving a lapsed topped tree.

 

 

 

A couple of members mocked me for it as a drama queen, but there has been at least one death resulting from a failure of regrowth from a topped tree, that I know about.

 

 

 

It will only take one ambulance chaser to pursue the avenue of negligence and bad practice for things to start to change.

 

 

 

But I'm not holding my breath:001_smile:

 

 

I'd say the negligence would be with the homeowner as surely after topping the tree it should be re-done or looked at periodically similar to pollarding.

[Gary Prentice]

Think that would be a hard case for someone to win, but nothing would surprise me these days

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Arbtalk

 

I'm not sure Steve, I think it may have already happened in the States.

 

I may be looking at it too simply, but if you do work that you know is against industry best practice/BS 5998 and can result in a failure, relying on the client to keep on re-topping it/ treating it as a pollarded tree (which you have no control of whatsoever) where would you stand in court?

 

Klaus Mattheck had some interesting comments at the last seminar I went to, about monoliths in public places. He dislikes them intensely because of their potential to fail due to the decay that provides the habitat that they're kept for. I can see his point.

 

It's okay when someone like Mr Humpheries is managing his tree stock as he does, with loads of testing and re-evaluation and awareness of the location/footfall etc but then consider a similar scenario when the tree manager is a member of the public who may not have the wherewithal, knowledge or means to manage a tree in the same way.

 

I'm starting to ramble on, but I think that's reasonably foreseeable that a topped tree won't be managed into the future to keep it in a safe condition - where liabilities then lay is above my pay grade.

[Gary Prentice]

I'd say the negligence would be with the homeowner as surely after topping the tree it should be re-done or looked at periodically similar to pollarding.

 

I think almost certainly the homeowner would be the first port of call. But remember that the average homeowner only has a duty of care limited to that of a non-tree expert.

 

So for example, someone moves into a house, with a tree that's been topped years before. The tree looks okay, it comes into leaf as it should and grows vigorously. No fungus brackets to raise the alarm. According to the NTSG the owner has fulfilled his duty of care.

 

He doesn't know that the arb who topped the tree had issued warnings to the previous owner when he did the work, nor that the potential for failure had changed because of that work unless the tree was continually managed.

 

I just think you're starting along a dangerous path when you err away from accepted best practice and should have a damn good justification for it if things go bad.

 

"it's what the customer wanted" and "if i hadn't done it, someone else would"

is going to be a pretty feeble response to a barrister asking why you deviated from the recommendations of BS3998 or industry best practice.

 

As you can tell it's a subject I'm overly passionate about:biggrin:

[Mick Dempsey]

I posted a couple of years ago saying that topping will stop when an arb is found liable after an incident involving a lapsed topped tree.

 

A couple of members mocked me for it as a drama queen, but there has been at least one death resulting from a failure of regrowth from a topped tree, that I know about.

 

It will only take one ambulance chaser to pursue the avenue of negligence and bad practice for things to start to change.

 

But I'm not holding my breath:001_smile:

 

I wonder how many deaths were avoided by topping of trees? Trees not falling on houses, not getting wind thrown.

[Gary Prentice]

Really?

 

Trees fall over because they grow too big:lol::lol: