Planning application & Arboricultural Method Statement

[monkeybusiness]

3 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Seems to me that this encourages people to fell trees as a safety measure BEFORE putting in planning.

 

 

We do loads of this for customers I’m afraid to say…

BS5837 was brought in to protect trees  on construction sites (which it does once in play) but it has also inadvertently led to the felling of a great deal of decent tree stock, often for speculative reasons.
It is worth taking a punt on the cost of legally clearing a site prior to submitting any sort of planning application to remove the risk of tree constraints impacting the chances of development.  

[john87]

2 hours ago, monkeybusiness said:

BS5837 was brought in to protect trees  on construction sites (which it does once in play) but it has also inadvertently led to the felling of a great deal of decent tree stock, often for speculative reasons.
It is worth taking a punt on the cost of legally clearing a site prior to submitting any sort of planning application to remove the risk of tree constraints impacting the chances of development

What did the muppets expect?? It is the same with bats now, anyone would have to be a raving looney to admit to having the things..

 

As for the councils, they just like to show off their power. Too bad they are not so keen on following the law of the land themselves.. [not to mention the corruption]

 

There was a house near me. It was beautiful, stunning, very large too. The inside was amazing and all in good condition too.. A firm of developers wanted to knock it all down and put up a block of flats.. So, they start to knock it down.. Up come the council and slap a thing on it making it a listed building. The developer did not care and demolished it as the council bods watched..

 

Now, you need planning permission to demolish things [apparently] so why did the council not enforce this, and, remember it was now a listed building, and make them stop and put it back as it was?? [they had only knocked down a small bit up to now]

 

No, the entire thing was demolished in front of the council bods..

 

What you think the council did next??? Went and gave them planning permission to put up the flats.. How much money changed hands there then??

 

Also near me is an entire street of houses. All along a river bank on one side of a river they are. Now, to get to this street you have to cross a road bridge. Yep, public highway, it was the main road once till a bypass was built.

 

Anyway, a local authority has a DUTY to maintain roads under S41 of the highways act 1980. They have now decided that the bridge is faulty and simply closed it leaving an entire street sealed off. What about the DUTY to maintain the road?? No worries about observing the law there then??

 

They spent a fortune on supposedly repairing it [all came to nothing] and a bigger fortune worrying about fish. All they had to do was to get a new steel bridge made and forget about the old one... [leaving aside the fact that you would not have to be Brunel to have sorted the old one.]

 

Far from helping bats and trees, the councils have merely made life harder for them [the bats and trees i mean]

 

Speaking of bats; The house i mentioned.. In a nearby garden were some trees. The landowner put in for planning but this was effectively blocked as there were trees of a sort that bats like apparently. No way was anything to be done to these trees. No bats mind you, just the sort of trees that bats like.. All of a sudden all the trees are cut down and now there are a row of very nice houses just being finished off at the moment. If anyone got into trouble for cutting down the trees i have no idea, but the houses are there now..

 

I think that what the law of the land actually is, depends a GREAT deal on how much money you have..

 

john..

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

15 hours ago, MaxD54 said:

what gives the council the right to do this?

s197 TaCPA

[daltontrees]

On 24/06/2022 at 21:34, Joe Newton said:

I'm by no means an expert on the subject. I'm surprised you had to go to the extent of an arb survey for trees that weren't protected by a tpo or CA.

 

It wouldn't be the first time planning officers have acted outside their remit.

 

If they aren't protected you can basically do what you like to them  whether it's felling them to make way for your extension, or simply by ruining them with the proposed works.

The trees are protected by the planning conditions. Council entirely within its rights to do this. Indeed, the legislation says it's an obigation on the Council to use conditions to protect trees.

[daltontrees]

On 24/06/2022 at 22:29, MaxD54 said:

I have anonymised this report that they provided that summarised all the work to be done. You'll notice the trees at the back of the garden and see the various sites where they want protective footing/ground boarding/etc... Hopefully it will help get a feel for the scope of what they are asking for.

 

As for the reasons for removing some of the trees, it's basically public safety according to them as some of them are in a poor physical condition....but still 20m away from the site....

"For reasons of public safety, all tree works referred to herein must be carried out prior to any

site personnel commencing works or any building materials being delivered."

BS5837 - AMS (anonymised).pdf 600.68 kB · 42 downloads

Yoo were charged £2500 for that? It's the sort of thing I do routinely for £350. Only better.

[daltontrees]

18 hours ago, MaxD54 said:

@John Shutler,  thanks for that but my main question remains: why can’t I decide myself whether or not I want to safeguard my trees as they are all TPO free? 

You can. No consultant should state that a tree is to be removed without the client's approval. Gnenerally no consultant shoudl finalise a report wihtout client's approval.

[daltontrees]

16 hours ago, Puffingbilly413 said:

As has been said, you only need to comply with the tree protection measures they agree on but you don't have to fell any trees you wish to retain just because your tree report recommends it. That said, if said trees have been inspected by an arb consultant and recommended for felling, then there will be a concrete reason for it.

The recommendation should not be made unless the tree is potentially affected by the development. And the recommendation should not appear in the final report unless and until the client wants it to be.

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

6 minutes ago, daltontrees said:

And the recommendation should not appear in the final report unless and until the client wants it to be.

An often forgotten basic tenet. 
 

The consultant works for the applicant not the LA. 
 

The applicant pays the application fee to the LA for the “privilege” of an application being administered and (hopefully) being granted consent to undertake work on their own land by the LA. 
 

The LA outsource the expertise and expense of compiling supporting statements to (and at the additional expense of) the applicant. 
 

He who pays the piper calls the tune. 

A supporting statement commissioned by an applicant will never be a truly objective report - it will illustrate all the positives associated with the application. 
 

 

[john87]

3 hours ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

s197 TaCPA

Hmmm, not so sure...

 

197 Planning permission to include appropriate provision for preservation and planting of trees.

 

It shall be the duty of the local planning authority—

 

(a)to ensure, whenever it is appropriate, [Note the magic word "appropriate]that in granting planning permission for any development adequate provision is made, by the imposition of conditions, for the preservation or planting of trees; and

 

(b)to make such orders under section 198 as appear to the authority to be necessary in connection with the grant of such permission, whether for giving effect to such conditions or otherwise.. [S198 is the bit that empowers them to make a TPO if as it says above it; "appear to the authority to be necessary"

 

They have not done this, they have looked at the case in question and obviously decided that it is NOT neccessary to impose TPO's or they would have done so..

 

Cut the trees down, go back to the council and say; "Hey, that report you wanted, you do not need one now as i have just cut the trees down"

 

john..

 

[Joe Newton]

18 minutes ago, john87 said:

Hmmm, not so sure...

 

197 Planning permission to include appropriate provision for preservation and planting of trees.

 

It shall be the duty of the local planning authority—

 

(a)to ensure, whenever it is appropriate, [Note the magic word "appropriate]that in granting planning permission for any development adequate provision is made, by the imposition of conditions, for the preservation or planting of trees; and

 

(b)to make such orders under section 198 as appear to the authority to be necessary in connection with the grant of such permission, whether for giving effect to such conditions or otherwise.. [S198 is the bit that empowers them to make a TPO if as it says above it; "appear to the authority to be necessary"

 

They have not done this, they have looked at the case in question and obviously decided that it is NOT neccessary to impose TPO's or they would have done so..

 

Cut the trees down, go back to the council and say; "Hey, that report you wanted, you do not need one now as i have just cut the trees down"

 

john..

 

As I've said before, you could learn from the better qualified posters in this thread, if you had a mind to.