conservation area - new person question

[Tofolo]

Hi

 

I have been reading your forum for a week and a lot of good info but i think i need some help from you all. I am not in the industry at all and live with a shared garden (8 other homes) in a conservation area and a lot of trees.

 

I live in Glasgow in a building of 8 flats, but i am on the ground floor. We share a back garden that is surrounded by trees on all 3 sides. The other gardens in the same street have very few trees and enjoy the sun all day. By contrast our garden is very shaded with the trees that are either very thick, very tall or both. Some of the tall ones are higher than the top flat (i would say 80ft+). The roots come up above the grass in parts and i think its a mix of sycamore and ash trees about 9 trees in total.

 

I would like to improve things and need some advice from you guys. I added a pic of my garden in the top right.

 

Should i simply write a letter to my land services saying i want to cut them down or should i say i am open to options to improve the garden environment and work with them? What i dont want to end up with TPO's or a flat "no" from them if there is a better way of approaching this?

 

The points i want to give them are

Full shade means

- limited light to my flat, making it colder and dull

- limited light to use the garden, no children play in it, washing does not dry, no one sits in it (my next door neighbors all use the garden fully)

- limited plants as not enough light to flower

- roots are a concern to the building structure / foundation

- concerned over height of them and possible damage to building

 

Any suggestions would really help me as i want to work with the council to improve the garden.

Edited August 17, 2015 by Tofolo

[10 Bears]

Not a straightforward answer to this, sorry.

 

There are a few things to clear up first. How do you know you are in a CA? Have you confirmed this with your local tree officer at the council? This is worth doing if not done yet as this may all be worry over nothing, but I will answer the rest of the query on the basis that you are definitely in the CA.

 

The shared ownership/tenancy of the garden is the first problem. All owner/occupiers have to be in agreeance with the chosen course of action eg felling etc., as otherwise nothing can be done even if only one person objects as each person has 'rights' in this situation. Just a point - did you mean the garden in the top left of the image? (not top right).

 

Its frustrating, but the argument over limited light in the property is no justification to fell trees unfortunately - particularly if they are protected through TPOs or are in a CA.

 

As a matter of course, trees in a CA are not immediately protected through TPOs, but they are protected by the fact the are situated inside the CA. Subsequently, if the trees become 'under threat' eg as you apply for CA works, then yes they can be secondarily TPO'ed to offer the trees individual protection (or similar). I have seen this all too often - you apply for works under the CA, but then the trees become TPO'ed making life a little more difficult, but not impossible. You can always appeal bad TPO decisions to the secretary of state.

 

The points you want to raise are generally reasonable to a person who lives at the property and wants to get use out of the garden, however, one or two are unfounded in my opinion. Devils advocate comments as below:

 

- limited plants as not enough light to flower ~ Plant shade tolerant ones

- roots are a concern to the building structure / foundation ~ Have you proven that you are on shrinkable clay? If not then this worry is unfounded as tree roots will not cause foundation damage unless shrinkable clay is present

- concerned over height of them and possible damage to building ~ Just because they are tall, does not mean that they will imminently fall through your roof. You have not stated that they are in contact with the building, so I don't see any other problem here

 

As I said, just being Devils advocate....!

 

I think all in all, your best course of action would be to contact the other residents and get a working group together with the same goal/opinion on what needs to be done. Once you are in agreement, you should then go to your landlord and put your views across as a single voice. This should help win favours with them.

 

After that, I would basically let the grounds team take on the problems with CA applications or similar as they are paid to do so, but you could act as the spearhead for the residents action group and keep this issue to the forefront of their minds.

 

If you could arrange it, a pre-application onsite meeting for all concerned parties eg landlord, grounds team, tree officer etc. may really help with helping the decision makers understand the situation, but this would take a fair bit of arranging.

 

Either way, all the best with this.

Edited August 17, 2015 by 10 Bears

[Chris at eden]

I'd go with dominance and lack of usable outdoor amenity space as your reasons. Liveability conditions is a valid reason for working on protected trees. If you go with structural damage you would need technical data to support the application (if they TPO) and being in Glasgow the risk would probably be low compared with somewhere such as London. Please don't take this as professional advice as I haven't looked at the site in detail, its just a general view of what may be possible or likely.

 

I think your local tree consultant will be Jules who posts on here so he may be able to offer better or more site specific advice.

 

Cheers,

[Tofolo]

Hi 10 Bears

 

Thanks so much for the reply, its really useful.

 

I am defiantly in a CA and i had a brief conversation one of the council oficers about it. The initial answer was not much chance", but they suggested i send a letter in asking and said some trees are considered weeds but he would not go any further. It was then that suggested i wrote "in my opinion the roots could cause damage" rather than get paid advice on this.

 

Picture - Yes sorry top left. you can see the tiny bit of sun that we get between 3-5pm

 

I will speak to the other owners of the flats but i think i will probably say i would pay for it.

1) we are facing a roof repair so they don't want to spend any more £.

2) they live on higher floors and get more sun.

3) I have kids who would play more in the garden if it was not so shaded

 

When you say Grounds team who do you mean? There is no one who maintains the garden - i cut the grass, clean the bin area and weed the patch. We do have a Property Factor (its common in Scotland to have this for shared flats) - do you think i should ask them?

 

As yet i have not spoken to any tree surgeons in the area.

 

Again landlord - we all own our own flats so would that just be interested owners?

[10 Bears]

Regarding the grounds team, apologies as I made the presumption that this was a housing association residence or similar. Possibly just due to the fact that you said this was a shared garden and I made the wrong assumption in this regard. The rest of my information regarding requiring everyone's agreeance/permission would still stand though ie if all tenants are shared legal owners of the trees, then they all have a right to say what they do or do not want to happen to the trees.

 

If what I have read about a Property Factor is correct, then yes they should be involved in this as the issue is a day to day maintenance one, and I read they are traditionally involved in arranging owners meetings. Being south of the border, I don't have experience of this so perhaps you or others have better information in this regard.

 

It sounds like you are being given poor information from your council officer to be honest. To encourage you to not seek professional help in a situation that may need some additional insight is not ideal, never mind ignoring the mistruth they are encouraging you to state in your letter. To be fair, any TO worth their salt will just look past the typical, 'the trees are blocking the light and undermining the house' comments and make a judgement within the realms of legislation and local amenity value. This is why I suggested you arrange a pre-application meeting with the TO to try to put across your views in a more personal manner. If the TO hears your plight while standing in a heavily shaded garden at 12 noon on a summers day - they may be more inclined to look on your situation more favorably.

 

Jules has been mentioned as a consultant in your area (Dalton Tree Solutions), and I believe he will be able to advise you about your situation locally. You will have to get all residents permissions/agreement as I said earlier, so perhaps you can get this in hand, but if I were in your situation, I would also seek professional assistance with this in order to try to get the resolution that is more like the one you want.

[daltontrees]

For various reasons I think I am fairly familiar with this location. Would I be right in saying that the land to the north east is the subject of feisty local opposition to the sale of community land for development by GCC?

 

There is a genuine difficulty - people on arbtalk are incredibly generous and skilled with their advice but they can only give general advice if they can't see the specifics of the situation. Some of the advice you have had so far is sound enough but dare I say suffers from over-generalisation to cover situations typical in english law (especially common ownership law and conservation areas) and english geology and climate and rights to light and ignoring how the role of Factors can be enshrined in deeds of condition for tenements.

 

I have been working on a situation like yours behind a southside conservation area tenement for 5 years, if it wasn't being done for my brother-in-law (i.e. no prospect of a fee for my advice but an ear-bending if I don't give it instantaneous priority every time a leaf floats down) I woud have walked away from it 4 and 11/12 years ago as a complete financial no-hoper. The trees are 10 metres higher than the top of the top flat of the tenement.

 

I'd say initially that giving you general advice on this forum will not get you the right answer. If you PM me I might be able to point you in the right direction buy refining the question. I'm not touting for business but from my experience you probably need the sort of bespoke advice that you won't get for free and which few contractors will be able or willing to give you (for free or otherwise). You have my sympathy about poor daylighting. Anyway, please feel free to PM me and I will see what advice I can give for free.

[Tofolo]

Hi Jules

 

Yes you are right about where in Glasgow this is. I live directly opposite the land in question but i dont care either way what happens to it. the trees on that side have no impact on sunlight.

 

I will PM you later today and see what we can work out.

 

thanks

david