Felling licence

[Paul in the woods]

6 hours ago, daltontrees said:

Another ocnsideration is that Roads and Highways vests verges and in some cases the trees on them in the public onwership regardless of process and regardless of ownership of the land beneath the verge. That would explain the Counci's comments. It will have a register of adopted roads and verges that it can check.

I'm not sure I understand that. If I own the land I would assume I own the trees growing on the land. Seems to match up with my highways dept anyway:

 

"Many hedges and trees grow on the edge of the highway and mark its boundary with private property. In these cases the adjacent landowner or occupier is responsible for maintaining them. This also applies to trees that overhang the highway or fall on to it. If you are unsure whether you are the owner check your property deeds or The Land Registry."

 

Without looking at the deeds in this case there's not really much for anyone to go on.

 

I'm also curious with regard to comments about it being a verge. Looking at the streetview it would seem the trees were part of a hedge. My understanding of a verge is that it would stop at the edge of the hedge and not include it - is that wrong?

[openspaceman]

1 hour ago, Paul in the woods said:

 

I'm also curious with regard to comments about it being a verge. Looking at the streetview it would seem the trees were part of a hedge. My understanding of a verge is that it would stop at the edge of the hedge and not include it - is that wrong?

 

Normally the highway would be hedge to hedge but the hedge could be planted after the highway was established. Which is why old maps would need looking at.

 

The thing is most highways date from much earlier times when all the land was in the ownership of the manor. Over time freeholds were sold off but the highways and verges remained wastes of the manor and stayed in the ownership of the lord of the manor. Often LAs took on ownership of manorial wastes and also may well be the highway authority.

 

In most cases the highways were rights of way over land owned by someone, whether the lord of the manor, successors in title or other enterties. Later when more modern roads were built by the HA, including Highways England and their predecessors, they would have purchased the land over which the road was built from a landowner.

 

So as land became enclosed the adjacent landowner would fence off their land, often with a ditch with the spoil thrown up inside their land and a hedge established on top. The highway could be quite wide as users wandered around muddy spots and then later the HA would metal the surface of a carriageway. All the land either side of this carriageway would remain in the ownership of adjacent land and any trees on it would be the property of the landowner even though they were on the verge of the highway.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

10 hours ago, daltontrees said:

This appears to be a breach of the Forestry Act as there are no clear exemptions that could have been used to avoid the need for a felling license.

Dangerous / dead?

[tree77]

56 minutes ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Dangerous / dead?

 

Yeh difficult to say if there's a breach as we don't know all the details. Although we assume its a highway verge as its next to the carriageway, I do see locations where the highway and local authority stops at the edge the carriageway and the verge is privately owned, though maybe not that common and as stated already could be private ownership but still falls under highways maintainable at public expenses.

 

I'm guessing that they would have checked recent planning applicants to see if there removal was part of it.

 

Will be interesting to what the councils finding area once they have investigated

 

[Khriss]

11 hours ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

Dangerous / dead?

... Or even diseased.  Still, makes a good friday night post, Korean was a poor choice, sadly. K

[daltontrees]

On 11/06/2021 at 19:16, Paul in the woods said:

I'm not sure I understand that. If I own the land I would assume I own the trees growing on the land. Seems to match up with my highways dept anyway:

 

"Many hedges and trees grow on the edge of the highway and mark its boundary with private property. In these cases the adjacent landowner or occupier is responsible for maintaining them. This also applies to trees that overhang the highway or fall on to it. If you are unsure whether you are the owner check your property deeds or The Land Registry."

 

Without looking at the deeds in this case there's not really much for anyone to go on.

 

I'm also curious with regard to comments about it being a verge. Looking at the streetview it would seem the trees were part of a hedge. My understanding of a verge is that it would stop at the edge of the hedge and not include it - is that wrong?

It's not that simple. Verges and tree on them usually vest in the Highways Authority, regardless of who owns or owned the land beneath. This does not need to be shown on title deeds as it is a blanket statutory vesting.

 

Mynor's book devotes 11 pages to this one issue. Maybe that gives an idea of the challenging nature of the issue?

 

The bit you cite from Highways appears to be a particular situation of boundary trees, not verge trees.

[daltontrees]

On 12/06/2021 at 10:29, Khriss said:

... Or even diseased.  Still, makes a good friday night post, Korean was a poor choice, sadly. K

The exemptions are clear in the legislation. 'To prevent danger'. The streetview pics suggest the trees were not dead, but that wold have been a valid reason not because a 'dead' exemption exists (it doesn't) but because a dead tree is not a tree. Diseased is only an issue if it is creating danger that needs to be prevented or, in the case of Dutch Elm Disease, if more than half the crown is dead.

[Paul in the woods]

1 hour ago, daltontrees said:

It's not that simple. Verges and tree on them usually vest in the Highways Authority, regardless of who owns or owned the land beneath. This does not need to be shown on title deeds as it is a blanket statutory vesting.

 

Mynor's book devotes 11 pages to this one issue. Maybe that gives an idea of the challenging nature of the issue?

 

The bit you cite from Highways appears to be a particular situation of boundary trees, not verge trees.

I can see it's not a simple case. Just looking at the info on my council's highway dept they make it clear the verge would stop at the base of the trees/hedge. So is that info likely to be misleading?

Tree maintenance - Roads and transport

WWW.DEVON.GOV.UK

---

A tree becomes a hazard when it has a structural defect that may cause the tree, or a portion of the tree, to fall and injure...

 

I assume the only way to confirm if the trees are on the verge would be to liaise with the council highways dept as well as examining the deeds? In this case it wouldn't surprise me if the owner of the trees asked the council to trim them and they said it wasn't their responsibility. It would be nice to hear any outcome.

 

With regard to your comments on boundary trees and verge trees, what's the difference? The trees in this case were part of a hedge, not what I would regard as individual trees planted on what I would regard as a verge (which I accept is not the legal definition of verge).

 

 

Edited June 14, 2021 by Paul in the woods

[daltontrees]

Perhaps you are trying to establish a rule from an example, but from all I know it doesn't work that way. The vesting arises from that whihc is maintained as public. Verges may be important to Highways if they contain services, comprise visibility splays, have lighting columns, lots of different reasons. The legal rule is clear, but its application extent will always depend on circumstances.

I'm in Scotland and officially we have Roads, not Highways. We too have the same rule but this has shown to be a little vague in its application and I recall it has gone to court a few times. It always helps to have an obvious delineation like a fence or a line or a wall or a hedge or a ditch, but there isn't always one.

In the OP's case it looked like shrubs with several distinct trees. I found I couldn't conclude anything from it.

[Paul in the woods]

I'm not trying to create any rules, just trying to understand the situation as I own quite a few road side trees, some of which I've had taken down.

 

I've not heard about the possibility of verges extending into what I would have regarded as private property. Things seem to be going the other way, highways departments reducing the amount of hedge and tree cutting they do.

 

I wonder how many people would question the ownership if they were quoting removal?