felling prior to planning application

[daltontrees]

21 hours ago, Puffingbilly413 said:

I do agree with you Jules in broad principle but didn't you say earlier you were living in a Barrat box with a garden with 6" of topsoil over rubble?  Joyless, sterile and grim don't sound bad adjectives to describe such a predicament!

I did say I was living there reluctantly.

 

However, I dug the whole garden over to a depth of about 40cm, picked out and then sieved out every stone, pebble, bit of plastic etc. and took them to the dump. Rotivated and re-stocked the garden with topsoil with endless compost and sharp sand dug in. Worms introduced. I now can't hold the grass back. Plus I am the last house in the street and have free rein to guerilla garden about 2 acres of woodland, which is turning into a bit of a personal arboretum because every DED victim is being replaced with a seedling from whatever building site is being pillaged that week. Joy is all around, if not inside.  And my office is in the garden, designed purposefully by me to let the joy in. 🌄☀️🌲🌳 Thoroughly de-grimmed.

[Mick Dempsey]

There’s a long lapsed hornbeam coppice where I grew up and I walked the dog as a younger man.

When I started in trees and began to identify them I came across a Service Tree right in the middle, no rhyme or reason as to why it is there.
 

 

Some wingnut  like you having a laugh at people 100 years in the future!

 

Edited August 13, 2021 by Mick Dempsey

[Baldbloke]

Hi all, 
 
I've just priced some 5837 reporting work but the potential client has asked whether he can just fell three trees on his property that would otherwise be effected by a building extension and not have to deal with the whole 5837 process. Assuming I am right in thinking that there is nothing to stop him doing this (no TPO, not of a size needing a felling license) I was just wondering how others have responded in similar situations. Obviously it's not an action I would advise him to take. 
 
Cheers
 
Rob

Probably wrong, but as a landowner isn’t there an allowance for taking down a small proportion of a larger stock of trees if no TPO is present?

[averagearborist]

To summarise and confirm - trees on a site for development with no protection status can be felled prior to applications for development.

While development sites 'should' give consideration existing trees, there is no statutory enforcement of this consideration.

[daltontrees]

18 minutes ago, averagearborist said:

To summarise and confirm - trees on a site for development with no protection status can be felled prior to applications for development.

While development sites 'should' give consideration existing trees, there is no statutory enforcement of this consideration.
 

Yes, if no protection status. But the protection status could include tree preservation order, conservation area, site of special scientific interest, felling license/permission limits, nesting birds, bats and bat roost features, protected tree species, title conditions and maybe a couple more.

[averagearborist]

Personally, I think this is backwards. It removes incentive to retain trees and make informed decisions about trees as part of a development. Moreover, it encourages developers to remove potentially valuable trees to avoid added costs, delays and complications.

I think the system as it stands is a major contributor to environmental degradation.

[daltontrees]

32 minutes ago, averagearborist said:

Personally, I think this is backwards. It removes incentive to retain trees and make informed decisions about trees as part of a development. Moreover, it encourages developers to remove potentially valuable trees to avoid added costs, delays and complications.

I think the system as it stands is a major contributor to environmental degradation.

Agreed, but I wouldn't say 'major', as felling restrictions slow down removals to 20 cube a year or only allow it in gardens.

 

WE could discuss 'valuable' all day, but in brief the trees on a development site may be valuable to society but not to the developer, so the developer gets to say what goes. In most ways taht's fair or else we would be compelling everyone everywhere to keep their trees and whereas personally I woudn't mind that, the burden of admin would be huge and it starts to sound a bit like an authoritarian state. Or we pay people to have trees. Again, I wouldn't mind that in principle.

[averagearborist]

You've highlighted the conflict right here - ease of development and economic growth against environmental preservation, regulation, enforcement and the drawbacks of the necessary bureaucracy to do this.