Giant tree, giant crack!!

[john87]

12 minutes ago, Khriss said:

You see Matty, its part of legislation. Hate it or not, i have to point out possibilities  to clients and then come up with answer, which i do and the job gets done. Based on my experience and qualifications. Dunno why that should piss anyone off when job gets done. The fines and adverse publicity can finish a  company, K

What happens in a situation where a tree is dangerous and to deal with the risk, it means disturbing the bats?? I know you say that the fines and whatnot would finish a firm off, but a firm has obligations under the health and safety at work act to provide a safe working environment for its workers free from the risk of being crushed to death, and everyone else has a common law duty of care to others, even trespassers on their land. Breaching these duties would finish off people/firms too..

 

I think a situation has been created now, where many people upon finding bats, instead of saying; "how can we deal with this?? What should we do??" will just wipe the things out as they know what will happen it they draw attention to them..

 

Nothing against the bat people [I presume you are one Khriss] but i think they have made the situation worse for the bats in many instances... What you think a farmer who finds bats in his outbuildings is going to do?? "Wheres me .410"

 

My other half used to have a rented flat.. There was this funny noise.. Next thing there was something leaking through the ceiling and loads of dead bees in light fittings and ceiling roses.. We got someone to have a look and it turned out that there was a bees nest thing about 4 or 5 feet high in the roof. We arranged to sort this but the bloke that came along got RIGHT shitty at the idea of killing them.

 

I told the muppet that if he was not happy he could either FxxK off and i would get another firm, or, if he loved bees that much, take the things home with him.. Hmm, not so keen then.. We all like bees, but i like my partner more, and i am not having her flat burn down cos of bees..

 

What is the answer to it all??

 

john..

 

[AHPP]

Got to say on top of that I hate so called bat experts , when working a tree nothing pisses me off more than some dick head turning up and reading me my rights and going on about bats in the tree.... do you really think I'm that stupid to risk getting a 10k fine for disturbing a bat roost ?! Or don't have the experience and knowledge my self to know where and what a active roost may consist of ..... Then having the site closed down to find out hey guess what there where no bats in the tree ... does not matter that the trees a willow that's shit itself over a primary school playground and class rooms , or a beech that's split over a heavily used footpath and ancient monument it's only important so these so called experts who get off on smelling there own farts and and justify there years wasted on a degree and there ridiculous salary's ...you can take your endo scopes and shove them where the Sun don't shine....

The sort of wankers who’d happily leave a creaking liability to fall though an orphanage between when a patently obvious problem is spotted and when the bat twat can inspect it (after he’s finished writing up some guff for a wildlife trust, in three weeks or so, weather depending, if he can be bothered).
I attended a bat workshop once. Absolute waste of time. The bloke’s answer to everything was that “proper consideration needed to be given.” Wouldn’t give examples of how anything could actually get done. Wouldn’t say what was the law and what wasn’t (I now suspect he simply didn’t know). Basically just pointed to fifty acres and said you can’t really cut it. Smashing.

[Paul in the woods]

23 minutes ago, john87 said:

What is the answer to it all??

 

I can answer the bee question. If they're honey bees you don't want to poison them. The reason why is that other honey bees will rob out the honey in the nest and take to poison back to their hive and you can end up killing other peoples hives. Perhaps more of a concern to you is the fact if the old nest is there it is likely to attract a new swarm as honey bees are attracted to old sites.

 

So, what you want to do is get someone in to cut out the existing nest and ideally remove as much of the old honey stores as possible. You can often get someone from your local bee keeping group to do this although be reasonable as they often get people expecting them to spend hours working for free.

 

I take your point about bats, I've mentioned before I'd love to put bat boxes up in my woodland but the cost of having them inspected if I need to maintain the trees has put me off.

[daltontrees]

There's lots of horrible angry and poorly informed stuff being spouted in this post. Well, it's not even about the tree and question posted at the start. If someone asks a question can't we all just express opinions and let the OP decide what to take from it instead of people yelling that their opinion is more valid than others? Some bizzare egos on this forum, that's for sure. And a fair number who just like an argument.

Here's my opinion. That cedar has probably carried that hazard beam for decades. Doesn't mean it won't fail, but hardly urgent. 2. From a couple of pics that don't show the context fully, none of us can say what the right solution is. As usual the answer is to get somebody competent to look at it in 3d or advise the customer to do something ill-informed with unknown consequences as a cheaper or indifferent alternative. 3. If work was being proposed I'd likely recommend a check for bat roost potential to protect my client against porsecution, because on the face of it that is the sort of feature that no-one in the world who has read the BCT guidance would defend you for disturbing without checking.  Roosts do not need to be active for a strict liability offence to have been committed, the destruction of an empty roost is an offence. 4. Removal of the limb in an old cedar will possibly cause a lot of knock-on damage, when reduction may be all that is needed to reduce the lever arm a little to prevent failure or bracing could do the same.

[daltontrees]

54 minutes ago, john87 said:

What happens in a situation where a tree is dangerous and to deal with the risk, it means disturbing the bats?? I know you say that the fines and whatnot would finish a firm off, but a firm has obligations under the health and safety at work act to provide a safe working environment for its workers free from the risk of being crushed to death, and everyone else has a common law duty of care to others, even trespassers on their land. Breaching these duties would finish off people/firms too..

 

I think a situation has been created now, where many people upon finding bats, instead of saying; "how can we deal with this?? What should we do??" will just wipe the things out as they know what will happen it they draw attention to them..

 

Nothing against the bat people [I presume you are one Khriss] but i think they have made the situation worse for the bats in many instances... What you think a farmer who finds bats in his outbuildings is going to do?? "Wheres me .410"

 

My other half used to have a rented flat.. There was this funny noise.. Next thing there was something leaking through the ceiling and loads of dead bees in light fittings and ceiling roses.. We got someone to have a look and it turned out that there was a bees nest thing about 4 or 5 feet high in the roof. We arranged to sort this but the bloke that came along got RIGHT shitty at the idea of killing them.

 

I told the muppet that if he was not happy he could either FxxK off and i would get another firm, or, if he loved bees that much, take the things home with him.. Hmm, not so keen then.. We all like bees, but i like my partner more, and i am not having her flat burn down cos of bees..

 

What is the answer to it all??

 

john..

 

There are established procedures for assessing potential roost features and for (if necessary) removing them in a seasone when they are not occupied. In the meantime H&S does not trump bats, I have haad the same issue with birds where the client had to exclude people form the fall zone around a tree pending a shitty looking pigeon deciding to take his time leaving a nest.

In some situatiosn I agree bats are possibly done in or roosts detroyed to avoid getting involved with the expense, delays and  uncertainty of bat issues.  

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

It is ‘unfortunate’ that legislation intended to ‘protect’ trees, bats, insert suitable example, often actually has quite the opposite effect by way of creating aversion to embrace or raise the profile for fear of overbearing officialdom and excessive financial implications. 
 

Bats are probably the best (worst?) example of this...

 

What a mad world. 
 

As with so many circumstances, an ‘expert’ that presents options rather than barriers is the key (think H&S supervisors 😂)

 

Our neighbour had an absolute nightmare with his barn conversion directly as a result of his engaging the ‘wrong’ kind of batman.   
 

Conversely, I had a brilliant and useful learning experience with the batman that surveyed our barn. Very pragmatic and proactive with the options rather than the barriers. 

[Anno]

must be the heat...

[MattyF]

There's lots of horrible angry and poorly informed stuff being spouted in this post. Well, it's not even about the tree and question posted at the start. If someone asks a question can't we all just express opinions and let the OP decide what to take from it instead of people yelling that their opinion is more valid than others? Some bizzare egos on this forum, that's for sure. And a fair number who just like an argument.

What about the stupid smirking self important idiot who's reading you your rights when you know there is no roost in that tree? I'm entitled to be pissed off , having my site and job shut down when it's bloody obvious where if any bats that have been detected are and will be.. I've had this happen four times now , it used to be that I enjoyed carving bat holes and making monoliths , coronets etc.... I think after dealing with these folk in the ways that I have and situations of the trees and there risks of failure I really can't be bothered any more..

[Stubby]

17 hours ago, john87 said:

 

 

 

 

Why do people plant trees in stupid places?? Is it ignorance, or do not care, or intent to maintain the thing or what?? Why would someone that is supposed to know about trees and stuff think it was a good idea to plant something that grows to that size 20 feet from a building..

 

john..

Possible the tree was there before the building  ?. Its not un heard of

Edited July 26, 2021 by Stubby

[daltontrees]

41 minutes ago, MattyF said:

 

What about the stupid smirking self important idiot who's reading you your rights when you know there is no roost in that tree? I'm entitled to be pissed off , having my site and job shut down when it's bloody obvious where if any bats that have been detected are and will be.. I've had this happen four times now , it used to be that I enjoyed carving bat holes and making monoliths , coronets etc.... I think after dealing with these folk in the ways that I have and situations of the trees and there risks of failure I really can't be bothered any more..

We've probably all had good and bad experiences. It is parliament that has chosen to protect bats. On the whole that's a good thing.

Ecologists can really make a meal of it. I had a site where the client asked me to sign off the trees for bats (which I am qualified to do) but also asked the ecologist to do the same. It was all that Planning wanted.  I surveyed the trees for bat roost features at the same time as  BS5838 survey. I charged an extra £60 for the supplementary report, and indemnified the client agaist claims and prosecution for destruction or disturbance. I was absolutely satisfied that there was low or negligible risk, all per the British Stnadard, amd I confirmed it in writing. The ecologists, on the other hand, camped out (2 of them) doing dawn and dusk emergence surveys for 3 nights (after a delay of 2 months to allow hibernation to end) and monitored activity in a 100m radius with heterodyne detectors and mist nets and god knows what else. Charged £1,200. Reached the same conclusion, buried deep in lots of irrelevant stuff about foraging. 

I like bats, I believe they should be protected, and I provide an inexpensive service that gets straight to the point because I find it results in less resentment when there is realistic and practical advice about solutions. The thing is, the law is the law and in most situations bats don't get in the way unless you ask an ecologist, they can be very risk averse and very pro-wildlife even when it is not present.  The greatest risk I perceive to bats is contractors who think they know all there is to know and are exposing customers ot risk of prosecution by letting their judgment be clouded by inverted snobbery about bat consultants.

There's a perfectly good, free, standard for contractors to use to sign off on bats in trees. I would urge all contractors to use it. It is an easy conversion from thinking they know it all to knowing enough to protect themselves, customers and bats. You can even charge for it.