When Planners Get it Wrong!!!!

[Amelanchier]

Seriously, make a complaint. We'll all just sit here and moan on about how bad it is - and we'll do it all again next week when it happens again.

 

Write a formal letter of complaint to the council reminding them of their duty under the TCPA 1990 and when they fob you off with waffle -make a formal complaint to the ombudsman.

 

Local Government Ombudsman • Making a complaint

[arbaholic]

I cant belive that was ok`d by a tree officer? Cant get my head around it, surely thats his job gone?!!

[PeteB]

That is a tasty peice of work that, why is it that the contractors went ahead? Surely they saw the roots as they where digging away or is it just a case of money buys happiness?

[tommer9]

why is it that the contractors went ahead?

 

Have you not seen builders when they are in the digger??? I have been doing a bit of stonework on and off for the last few weeks on a building sute, and had almost a row with the dickhead digger driver about whether the tree whose roots he had chopped to put a soakaway in would survive or not. Mentioned RPZ etc and he wasnt having any of it....neither was the foreman. Waste of breath. It was only a scabby little radiata, but thats not the point.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

To be honest, i see this sort of S... every day, hence i want to be a consultant/surveyor, BS blah blah. why oh why does this keep occuring, why isnt BS 5837 issued with building training? do they teach architects BS5837?

[arbaholic]

That is a tasty peice of work that, why is it that the contractors went ahead? Surely they saw the roots as they where digging away or is it just a case of money buys happiness?[/quote

 

Could be that they got the permission from the council and thought that if there was anything wrong with it they would have been refused? They may have no knowledge of tree biology etc whatsoever and relied on and trusted the tree officers advise.

 

Cant blame them in that respect.

[Amelanchier]

This keeps on happening because we keep our complaints to ourselves.

[Tony Croft aka hamadryad]

This keeps on happening because we keep our complaints to ourselves.

 

It is as far as i can tell a lack of funds and staff to keep up with this stuff.

 

at tep yesterday we got to see some beautiful plans for developments, some from tesco, then we got to see slides of the now built product, MINUS all the greenery that was shown on the plans!

 

one tree officer said that he wanted ideas on how we can bring these developers to account with little resources and staff hours.

 

What would you do in these situations Tony? I will also ask if you have some really good points to add them to the seminar blog.

[Amelanchier]

There is a big timelack of resources but sometimes, like this time it would seem, people who should know better make mistakes.

 

The Aussies (ever the practical types) often require a bond or deposit up front, refundable on completion. If the trees don't go in (or the reatined trees get damaged) - you don't get it back and then you have some money to put things right. So yep you can build that (no worries mate?) but we've valued the trees at £500,000, so hand that over and you can have it back if you don't screw up.

 

Never going to happen with the current state of the economy though.

Edited June 25, 2010 by Amelanchier

[Amelanchier]

Another thing is the conditioning of third party Arb supervision. If the council doesn't have the money to watch the site - make the developer pay for Arbs to do it for the council.

 

Its something that we add in our development reports and often undertake. We provide updates and photo evidence to the TO - completely impartially. We sort out those stupid little site problems that take up some much time (is the fencing in right?) and the more switched on developers realise that is costing them double money to fix the snags.

 

Problem is only one council round our way is known to explicitly condition it within the planning consent.