Boris Morton

Thank you all for your responses. It’s a learning process for me but some takeaways from it: 1. daltontrees – agreed, ‘wilful’ in modern English suggests a malicious act (which would be difficult to define) but it seems that in legal parlance it has a subtly different meaning; it appears to be the opposite of ‘unaware’, in that it refers to an action taken with knowledge that it contravenes some statute or recommended procedure, rather than an action taken in ignorance of the same. 2. Tree monkey 1682 – Local Authorities have considerable powers but in my area they fail miserably to use them; Not far from the Oak tree was a large mature Walnut tree. The owners applied for planning permission for an extension stating on the application that no trees were affected but hidden on one of the drawings was a statement that the tree was diseased and would be removed. Up went the extension and down came the tree. 3. MarkJ and waterbouy – thanks for the Arboricultural Association link, I hadn’t seen that before. When I get the Tree Surgeon’s report I will forward it to the landowner along with the AA link and a link to BS5837:2012 and copy the council Tree Officer. At least that way the landowner cannot claim acting out of ignorance.

First off, a big thank you to those who offer free help and advice through this forum. The advice I seek relates to the possible consequences of carrying out groundworks within the Root Protection Area as described in BS5837. The situation is this; There is a large (4.93 metre girth @ 1.5 metres) English Oak tree (with TPO) growing on the boundary of mine and a neighbours property. There is a further property boundary about 3 metres from the tree. The tree is quite difficult to photograph so here is a map showing the RPA as a circle of 15 metre radius centred on the trunk: Following a recent sudden branch drop, which took out a fence, I was making repairs when the owners of the third property introduced themselves and asked if the tree surgeon I had employed to make the branch safe had assessed another branch which overhangs their land as they intend to construct a car port under the canopy of the tree and well inside the RPA. I suggested that this may not be the best place to put a car port but they seemed committed. I have asked the tree surgeon to comment to them and hopefully his words will convey the ill advised nature of the plan but because they do not need planning permission, there does not appear to be any official mechanism to control the groundworks so that the roots of the tree are respected. My question is does anyone have experience of the effect of unsympathetic groundworks? I would like to be able to advise them of possible future problems with what they propose and give examples as I don’t want to end up in a situation where they just build it, a branch (or, god forbid, the entire tree) falls as a result, and they try to claim the cost of a car port and a couple of cars from me. Thank you in advance, Boris