Hypothetical teaser

[Amelanchier]

Run hotfoot to their legal department I suggest. The law does sometimes allow its spirit to supersede its letter and, without knowing anything about the Act myself, I cannot believe that the course of action hypothetically undertaken by your hypothetical member of the public would be within the spirit of the Act.

Whether I'm right would be for a court to decide.

 

The purposive approach indeed - I think your probably right, a court would look at the notice and see a deliberate attempt to evade the spirit. But it would have to get to acourt in the first place for that to happen...

 

Forgive me as I may be missing something here. Why would the LA incur the wrath of several hundred people (possibly)?

 

Presumably all the trees affected would be on person A's property? Otherwise he would need to be acting as an agent for trees not on his property. Is he able to submit an application for a third party's trees without the owners consent?

 

Is the six weeks insufficient time for an LA to TPO individual trees or the whole if the TPO criteria are met?

 

Yes you can submit a notification for anyones trees - essentially the notice serves as a defence against prosecution, it isn't bothered as to whether you would practically asked or able to do the work. Its normally taken to be transferrable (which is how a cient can notify and the contractor do the work) but I can see some difficulties there also.

 

The wrath arises from having a TPO drop on your doormat (or having to go to the post office to pick it up if you were out and it was sent recorded) showing all your trees protected when you haven't done anything to warrant it. I've served large scale Orders before (in anticipation of new conservation areas) and people often aren't to happy about it. You definitely wouldn't make any friends by doing it.

 

Six weeks is probably long enough but dealing with the repercussions would probably take months.

 

Like you say, the information you have supplied is legaly sufficient and the clock is ticking so as long as you have a coppy of the letter and sent it SD then you are covered, however I would think that the LPA would reply with objections within the six week allowance, If they didn't, then its open season.

 

PS, have LAs ever done anything fair?

 

The only objection that the law allows is a TPO though...

Edited January 8, 2013 by Amelanchier
sp.

[JonnyVine]

The only objection that the law allows is a TPO though...

 

Quite

[Gary Prentice]

I've served large scale Orders before (in anticipation of new conservation areas) and people often aren't to happy about it. You definitely wouldn't make any friends by doing it.

 

Is that the normal protocol? Serve the six month temp. order, create the CA within the six month period and then not bother to confirm the Area Order.

 

Just interested because I've never read anything about how CA's are actually created. It seems like an awful lot of work, if you have to notify every individual householder.

 

Going back to the original hypothesis, I can't see any alternative other than to create an Area TPO. The secretary of state has stated that an area order should be a short term solution and individual orders should be made, within a reasonable period, of those trees worthy of protection.

 

Some Area Orders locally are thirty or forty years old, so identification of trees present at the time of the order becomes an issue. There's insufficient resources available to update all the old ones.

[Peter]

I'll try it on my next CA notification and let you know how I get on. Cheers Tony!

[Amelanchier]

Just interested because I've never read anything about how CA's are actually created. It seems like an awful lot of work, if you have to notify every individual householder.

 

Typically, a external consultant is appointed to assess the area, draw up a boundary and appraisal of a potential CA before a public consultation period. Its this consultation period that will normally see a considerable increase in tree removal unless premeptive TPOs are made; its an imperfect system and understandably does really aggravate people.

 

And yes, its a LOT of work.

[Amelanchier]

I'll try it on my next CA notification and let you know how I get on. Cheers Tony!

 

Wait til April 1st to really twist their melons...

[daltontrees]

LA could write to every affected owner stating that unless the author of the s211 notice was their authorised agent it would be an offence to allow (retrospectively) the trees to be cut down? In effect wouldn't every owner except the author then resist any trees being cut down for fear of penalties.

[Gary Prentice]

Wait til April 1st to really twist their melons...

 

And then do every CA in the borough.

[treequip]

LA could write to every affected owner stating that unless the author of the s211 notice was their authorised agent it would be an offence to allow (retrospectively) the trees to be cut down? In effect wouldn't every owner except the author then resist any trees being cut down for fear of penalties.

 

 

Can you show me where the act says that?

[Tom D]

In Edinburgh the council respond saying that they would object to the proposed work, not that they are applying a TPO. So the real interesting thing would be what would happen if you then went ahead anyway. I know for a fact that councils find it expensive to apply TPO's and if a simple "no" letter will do they will not actually bother with the TPO.