BS5837 guide book download

[wjotner]

On 22/02/2026 at 00:31, Chris at eden said:

Most folk start out doing risk surveys, I did, over 20 years ago.  You then work up to planning, subsidence, mortgage, decay detection, etc.  Then eventually expert witness if that’s your thing.  I actually like doing risk surveys again now so kind of come full circle. 5837 is good but if you do it properly it’s pretty time demanding. Most companies churn out generic rubbish though.  I don’t know why, they take time but they are not rocket science.  
 

I assess them for an LPA as an external consultant as they don’t have a TO.  Most of the ones I see are pretty shocking, not all.  I worked as planning TO for 13 years as well and that was the same story.  If you do them right you will get a steady flow of work as you will get a reputation of being no hassle. I.e. you don’t get objections from the LPA.  That is good news for architects and planning consultants. 

 

If you have any questions, feel free to ping me an email. 
 

Cheers 

 

Chris 
 

Thanks that interesting to know. Yes I've been doing VTA risk assessment for council and my own side work for a couple of years. But I'd like to move into other tree surveying and bs5837 seems like a natural place to move to. Although I do see there's quite a bit to get familiar with.  I think I'm going to try to start by offering my services to other arb companies as a field surveyor for the bs5837 only rather than doing the whole thing as I still need to learn a bit more.

[Mark J]

1 hour ago, wjotner said:

Thanks that interesting to know. Yes I've been doing VTA risk assessment for council and my own side work for a couple of years. But I'd like to move into other tree surveying and bs5837 seems like a natural place to move to. Although I do see there's quite a bit to get familiar with.  I think I'm going to try to start by offering my services to other arb companies as a field surveyor for the bs5837 only rather than doing the whole thing as I still need to learn a bit more.

That's a good idea. The Arb Association run courses on BS5837, you might want to look into that at some point.