Making the news today....

[peds]

1 hour ago, openspaceman said:

Hope he gets a decent barrister because that is an abuse of whatever tree valuation scheme was used even though it was reprehensible vandalism.

 

Has anyone put out an accurate guess of the value as firewood and chip?

[AHPP]

13 minutes ago, dumper said:

Not so sure. how much would you charge to replace it with the same species of similar size?

we had a chat few weeks back came to 3/4 million as a starting figure

Show your workings!?

 

Four twenty tonne diggers for a day to dig one up, wrap it and put it on a low loader. The drive (with a bloke with a bowser in a van to water it like Free Willy). Another couple of days of twenty tonners to crawl it up the hill. About a week for for some pontificating historian to supervise. Bloke on a quad for fifty days running mulch and water up. Incidentals. Not as cheap as not bothering but not £750,000. 

[dumper]

We thought given ground conditions heavy lift helicopter 

there is. £250 000 for a start unless we can borrow a sky crane

find tree prepare 2/3 years work rootball prune, move 

excavate pit on ancient monument not cheap by hand 

plant water and look after 

allowance for failure 

how much would you do it for?

[AHPP]

There are good tracks off the back and a lot of stone. Someone got a crane up there after it was felled. 

Part of my maths was using a digger to bury the worst of the clipboards. And plant it thirty feet back from the original to save stump grinding and having to work right on the wall. So do it with diggers. Even if it had to be hand dug, you could swarm the place with volunteers. Remember the wailing when it was felled? They can all do an hour of digging.

 

I’m aware I’m now being more practical than realistic regarding red tape but your 2/3 years to find and uplift is similarly mad. What on earth would take that long? It’s a sycamore. You could probably get one within twenty miles with a shoutout on the news. Crack teams of arborists, architects and aestheticians don’t need to roam the countryside like Mason and Dixon, in search of the perfect plant. Local farmers could WhatsApp pictures of whatever they wanted to sell, probably including sycamore trees. 
 

 

[AHPP]

You’re most right on the allowance for failure though. Moving a tree that dies is still going to be six figures. Have three stabs at it and that’s a lot. No idea what insurance would look like on it. Suspect not especially comforting. 

[dumper]

I doubt you would be allowed a digger within 100 m of the wall can you imagine the paperwork and box ticking plus the jobsworths that would be involved

given I put mature oaks in at Nine Elms using the sites tower crane and they were over 20k and much much smaller

[dumper]

Just imagine the whole of the uk is going to be watching you 

65 million arm chair tree planters who could all do it better !

[AHPP]

I do defer to you on the jobsworth costs etc but you are going to have to tell me how it takes 2/3 years to find and wrap a tree. Pruning and waiting doesn’t cost much money unless you’re guarding it in between. 
 

Tell us about the oaks. Sounds interesting. I assume the embassy job? Please refrain from giving exact costings where I, the British taxvictim have footed the bill. 
 

 

Edited August 27 by AHPP

[AHPP]

40 minutes ago, dumper said:

I doubt you would be allowed a digger within 100 m of the wall

 

 

Aware breaking ground possibly different... There’s a reason I don’t do this sort of thing. I simply wouldn’t bother. Too much effort for one tree (however nice). Build a school instead. Raise the next generation of kids to invent tree building nanobots or time travel. 

Edited August 27 by AHPP

[peds]

Did I not hear that the stump had shoots appear, as sycamores occasionally do? Would we not just let the tree that is already there get on with it? A lot cheaper...