I love TPO bureaucracy :-)

[ferdinand2000]

Just spotted, Havant have a form which you can fill in to find out whether it is worth filling in the whole enchilada umpteen page real form to request to do work on a TPO tree :-).

 

"Tree Request Form

Works to a tree in a Conservation Area or subject to a Tree Preservation Order

(enquiry form)

 

Please use this form to enquire as to whether you would be likely to gain permission to carry out proposed works to a tree that is either subject to a Tree Preservation Order or is within a Conservation Area. Please note that this is not an application form - see the section below."

 

Here:

http://www.havant.gov.uk/PDF/TREE%20REQUEST%20FORM.pdf

 

The real one is described thus:

 

"Tree Works Application Form

Works to a tree in a Conservation Area or subject to a Tree Preservation Order

(applications form)

 

This form is for consent for works to trees subject to a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) and/or notification of proposed works to trees in conservation areas

 

Please make sure you read the Guide and Checklist documents below to ensure you supply all the relevant information required for us to consider the application."

 

Wonderful. Roll on the 25% cuts.

 

Ferdinand

[Amelanchier]

That's fantastic - a checklist for a form that already contains a checklist!

 

I dunno why people see the 1APP as that arduous. It stuns me that some people can't complete even the first parts about the trees location or draw a sketch plan. Modern life must defeat their every desire.

 

Regarding the cuts - I share that sentiment in part, we can all think of bureaucracy we would like to smash however I have friends and colleagues facing a very real prospect of wage reductions, forced part time working and redundancy. These are people just like you and I who work very hard at an often unrewarding job.

 

I'm not trying to misrepresent your point sir, just pre-empting the responses in the interests of balance.

[High Scale]

I feel sorry for some of those people but then I remember that most of them have, or had, paid holidays, pension plans and sick pay.

 

But I also look at the big picture, think back to the past and realize that once again we've been cheated, to miss quote Mr John Lydon.

[ferdinand2000]

That's fantastic - a checklist for a form that already contains a checklist!

 

I dunno why people see the 1APP as that arduous. It stuns me that some people can't complete even the first parts about the trees location or draw a sketch plan. Modern life must defeat their every desire.

 

Regarding the cuts - I share that sentiment in part, we can all think of bureaucracy we would like to smash however I have friends and colleagues facing a very real prospect of wage reductions, forced part time working and redundancy. These are people just like you and I who work very hard at an often unrewarding job.

 

I'm not trying to misrepresent your point sir, just pre-empting the responses in the interests of balance.

 

Cheers for the reply Tony. Sorry for my delay in replying.

 

Having spent a few years working in local govt in IT, and having seen at least 2 IT Departments decimated (lost >a third of staff in months) because of "national agreements" forcing down salaries and making staff leave to places paying market rates, and a Council with all innovation frozen for about 3 years because it was awaiting abolition and staff were self-protecting, for my money the first stuff that needs cutting is the machinery micromanaging local stuff from a national level, so I'd abolish most of that for a start.

 

25% over 5 years is a fairly modest reduction imo - private industry does that time after time. My basic position is that if a resource/department/job is not needed if the work can be done more efficiently, then it is basically maladministration to keep them in place. Then I'd start abolishing County Councils ... ;-) .

 

On the new TPO system post Trees in Towns, there are some dreadful aspects. The directive which makes it illegal for TOs to even consider a form which isn't filled in to the last dot and tittle makes me understand partly why a more informal form can be necessary. Don't start me on the transfer of cost from local councils to Tree Owners, which was hidden in the totals of the impact assessment before the legislation came in.

 

Rgds

 

Ferdinand

[Amelanchier]

Indeed. Before the coalition threw Norwich's untiary authority bid in the bin the prospect of the boundary commission merging councils in Norfolk crippled decision making and triggered a wave of ship scuppering (i.e., spend everything so someone else can't have it) in a neighbouring district.

 

I take it your in favour of the new localist agenda then? I can see promise and pitfalls alike so will bide my time until hindsight allows me to be right!

 

I like the 1APP. I think often its the way in which it is used that is the problem. Essentially the previous system was nationally incoherant and this raised the standard of information required to a consistent benchmark - for those of us determining applications it was a good thing. An officious attitude to any process is unproductive - its possible to enforce the 1APP standard in a flexible way, there are critical sections and non critical sections.

[ferdinand2000]

Indeed. Before the coalition threw Norwich's untiary authority bid in the bin the prospect of the boundary commission merging councils in Norfolk crippled decision making and triggered a wave of ship scuppering (i.e., spend everything so someone else can't have it) in a neighbouring district.

 

 

 

I like the 1APP. I think often its the way in which it is used that is the problem. Essentially the previous system was nationally incoherant and this raised the standard of information required to a consistent benchmark - for those of us determining applications it was a good thing.

 

I take it your in favour of the new localist agenda then? I can see promise and pitfalls alike so will bide my time until hindsight allows me to be right!

 

The problem is that unsupported it will be weakened. I'd do a few basic things to shake it all up and make the local more important.

 

I'd shift most control for local stuff from communities of 100k to those of around 10k, more like the French, and big up the role of Parish and District Councils. A classic example here was Oswestry (abolished by the Ginger Nut) which used to have local parking control, so you paid your 60p for your parking, and your ticket at the Town Hall when you forgot (this is 2006 or so), which was then replaced by a County Wide service and a call centre.

 

I'd make councils raise 50%+ of their income locally (with an equivalent national reduction), which would double or treble Council Tax overnight, and make people a *lot* more interested.

 

And I'd try and make local variation acceptable - which would be difficult to achieve in the face of so many universal "rights" and globally set legal decisions. In my book it is OK for area B to decide to have better coastal defence or schools in exchange for higher local taxes. Postcode lotteries are cool.

 

An officious attitude to any process is unproductive - its possible to enforce the 1APP standard in a flexible way, there are critical sections and non critical sections.

 

...except where you are mandated to be officious under threat of Statutory Penalty by those areas of the law drawn up by dipsticks and loons who are addicted to micro-control from a great height using the "pigeon" technique.

 

Or perhaps you ignore it :-)

 

Cheers

 

F

[Amelanchier]

Its just a form. Not the mendacious hammer of red tape crushing the personal liberty of some romantic notion of the english gerontocracy. It's not the grail of the pedant or a tool of iniquitous subversion by a cryptofascist ubermensch - its just a form. Fill it in, send it off, prune a tree (or not).

 

There is no irregularity in taking a particular stance on the enforcement of a piece of legislation, the CPS does it all the time! What statutory penalty is there for a council accepting an incorrect form?! You'd just get whupped at appeal is all.

 

The only issue I have with postcode lotteries is the term. Lotteries are random (otherwise the wouldn't be lotteries), variation of service by postcode is not random and that's usually why people are complaining about it.

 

I am grumpy drunk.

[arb culture]

Its just a form. Not the mendacious hammer of red tape crushing the personal liberty of some romantic notion of the english gerontocracy. It's not the grail of the pedant or a tool of iniquitous subversion by a cryptofascist ubermensch - its just a form. Fill it in, send it off, prune a tree (or not).

 

What a brilliant bit of English - loving it.

 

You should get grumpy drunk more often, raising the linguistic bar of the forum whilst you're at it.

 

[High Scale]

For us other mortals.

 

Online Thesaurus UK | Free Synonyms Antonyms Dictionary Reference | Word Search Thesauri

[Bundle 2]

For us other mortals.

 

Online Thesaurus UK | Free Synonyms Antonyms Dictionary Reference | Word Search Thesauri

 

Hallelujah and praise the lord.... And someone slap that drunk ! Hyperbole indeed!