Jon Heuch

The simple answer to your question is that what is covered and what is excluded in an insurance contract depends on what is in the contract and how it is phrased. Rather than me just copy you would be as well to look up Act of God on Wikipedia...it gives a good case (flooding) where the possibility of an act of god is the prime reason for you taking out insurance in the first place. With regards to trees falling on buildings your house insurance may cover your house but is less likely to cover your shed; if your tree falls on your neighbour's shed it will be the liability clause in your contents insurance (yes!) that is likely to cover your neighbour's claim and your legal cover that might assist you in fighting any liability if you didn't have contents cover.

Depends on how "unsuitable" they were! Did they have "insurance" & was it the right type of insurance? Well the Cavanagh V Witley & Shepherd judgment is an interesting one......but it doesn't seem to be fully in the public domain yet and it's heading to appeal so I am led to believe. The tree surgeon who apparently is named as one of the parties doesn't exactly come out with a glowing reference from the judge "...deliberately untruthful..." were his words "aided and abetted by his wife...." Strangely this isn't given much attention on his website! However, he didn't have professional indemnity insurance so essentially got away with it, leaving the parish council as tree owner to "hold the can". I wonder whether he will doing much more tree inspection with or without insurance? The outcome: i) a seriously injured person ii) months of uncertainty whilst the case was prepared.....management time diverted to all that preparation iii) a very uncomfortable day or two at court with cross examination, egg on face iv) a permanent record of their performance in court....as above. v) their name indelibly quoted in arboricultural circles to show us what can go wrong Qualifications & experience? It's a difficult one but the PTI course would be a minimum to do this type of work on any regular basis.

Welcome to much of London........

This type of situation is often complex and the only test of importance is whether the building continues to move (& cracks)....or not. A property seller with any gumption will redecorate shortly before the house goes on the market with the hope that the seriousness of the situation can be hidden from view.......but does the redecoration reflect a stable house or something else? In the short term, you have no way of knowing - forget seeking "expert" advice, it won't really be of much use as you will get a range of views. What it might be useful to have in the medium term, but of no use to you now, is level monitoring (3-6 months worth of data) but this will only come to its own when we have a hot dry summer (that's when the property will be tested by the actions of the tree). Your question to this arboricultural forum is whether oak roots will get below 3.3 metres; in natural soil in SE London, the answer is yes but there won't be a huge amount of activity at that depth. In disturbed soil, where a trench has been dug for underpinning, there will have been greater aeration and changed circumstances for root growth. Who knows what impact that will have had on rooting - none of us were there when the trench was dug and refilled - but if the tree is mature and not growing a lot the root growth should not be too vigorous (that's a positive factor). If the tree still has some potential to grow larger, there is a greater chance of the roots growing under the underpinning. Your real challenge will be getting insurance; the current insurer should offer to continue cover which should include "subsidence, landslip and heave". If it doesn't, certainly walk away. If it does, compare the cost of insurance offered against a price comparison website cost for the same property where there is no subsidence reported. You will be stuck with the same insurer & that annual difference for life (or whilst you own the property!) & it could get worse if the subsidence re-occurs. You might be able to get an alternative insurance supplier but that will require a specialist broker (possibly ££££). Next problem:.......(oh dear!): semi-detached house with your property partially underpinned.......a recipe for a disaster. The underpinned part of the property will be relatively stable, the rest (including your neighbour's property attached to yours) will be less stable so may continue to move if the oak roots extend that far...... A key factor will be the location of the tree relative to the two properties. All I can say is proceed with caution and if you do decide to go ahead that the price you pay reflects the issues above; remember, when you want to sell the same questions may be asked, making it more difficult to sell. The only consoling factor I can give is that compensation may be payable by the Council for loss or damage that occurs AFTER they refuse any application to fell in the protected oak in the future (this is a complex timing issue and not a blank cheque for anything that happens). Councils don't give up their cash too willingly, rarely pay 100% of a claim & it typically requires both perseverance and the ability to wait a year or two (or much more) whilst the cogs of justice rotate.....so compensation is very much a consolation prize.

British Geological Viewer (on line) is the easiest source. Search the BGS website for borehole records - they are there in profusion.

Sounds like you need to seek public liability insurance as an ecological consultant.....after all that is what you are doing as a bat inspector. Goggle will give you various options. Won't your tree surgery public liability insurance cover you for aerial inspections? As for what might happen, well there is the person driving a landrover and trailer who landed on the railway line and caused a train accident......the insurance has to cover all trees in all locations & they don't see the numerous low risk situations, only the high risk ones.

I wouldn't state accuracy of a geology map as +/- 20 miles; that suggests that they are accurate but that the position may be out. That is misleading. You have to understand how the data was gathered in the first place (initially just observations from outcrops/road and railway excavations but enhanced by borehole records) and what newer information has been collected that has modified/confirmed findings. Also that sampling can be at very different intensities: thus the whole route of the M25 is well documented from boreholes; go 100 metres away from the M25 and there can be next to nothing, other than from observation of the soil. Considering that materials were dumped by glaciers, rainfall, rivers, sea and man have moved stuff around for a long time there is no reason to suppose that the nice lines of a geology map represent exactly what is around street by street......... As for heave, it is primarily a problem for NHBC where new houses/foundations are constructed on recently cleared land. I wouldn't worry about staged removals for the reasons described. As for whether an old walnut is removed, if the tree has to be removed (or if a tree dies or if it is dangerous) you have little choice - it has to be removed. Make sure the owner has appropriate insurance for heave!

Well Robert, my advice to you is this: if you want to understand the law you firstly have to know what the law is. s.199.......you probably want to start at the Planning Act 2008 s 192(3)........s.199 evaporated then and came into law with the 2012 Regs s.201....Planning Act 2008 s 192(4)......the same So you need to look at Part 2 of the 2012 Regs to work out how the system changed. It is annoying that the legislation.gov.uk website provides access to clauses which are longer valid but if you open up the options under "Changes to legislation" the situation becomes a little clearer. It should make your head hurt less!

ummmmmmmmm.......Tree of Heaven.......ash (not!)

It depends what you are doing - what do you mean by "carried out"? You can view a .dwg or .dxf file (provided from a topo survey or from an architect) in autocad LT, annotate it, and produce a pdf plan; you can underlay a pdf plan if you are smart enough to scale it properly and draw over it and/or produce a plan showing the pdf underlay...... You can take the plan into the field on a tablet with autocad 360 but you might want to use a more arbfocused piece of software. You most certainly don't need to go for the 3D CAD software if you are just starting out.

Commonwealth Forestry Institute (CFI) Occasional Paper No 24 by Dick (R.G.) Pawsey Ash Dieback Survey Radcliffe Science Library | Oxford Digital Library for Forestry Follow the links (it's not immediately obvious which links) and you can download it from the Bodleian.

The simple answer is it will depend upon the evidence that the neighbour can produce. If there is no evidence other than a fallen tree the neighbour is going to have to do better than that; if there is a long string of correspondence between the two parties, photos and a clear record of what roots were cut they will have the basis of a case. Reality is that whoever is the injured party will claim against their insurance policy and the insurance company may seek recompense if it feels it has a strong case. Few people have the stomach and the extended pockets to allow excursions into court unless necessity forces them to.

You are saying that the cutter of the roots is fully aware that the cutting of roots will dramatically increase the risk of failure AND that failure might lead to the tree falling on their own property. Interesting. I don't see the failure to act prior to the roots being cut as an issue of negligence. The issue is one of trespass and/or nuisance. The negligence only arises from failure to act once the roots have been cut. ... I do think that the specific events and their timing will play a role in who is to blame. Who has buried their head in the sand? Who has attempted to be reasonable? What professional advice has been received? What would the professional advise? Be cautious. Document everything. Be reasonable. Take photos. Keep communicating. ......and nibble away at the roots slowly......no significant cuts at any one stage and the tree may respond by growing roots elsewhere? Or drill a hole in the largest woody root and pour some concentrated glyphosate into it? I don't think the law was designed for this level of detail!

Well yes he can. He can apply to the court for an injunction. The trouble with that however is: a) it is expensive b) the level of proof required is well beyond what we might expect That is the danger from the tree has to be imminent, significant and proven so. Speculative risk will not work. If a court were to grant an injunction failure to comply would lead to measures for not complying with the injunction - it still wouldn't "force" the tree owner to remove.

If the tree were to fall down (causing damage/harm/injury) shortly after cutting the roots - same day or without much delay - it should be easy to argue that the falling of the tree was caused by the person cutting the roots. Having a right to cut roots does not allow someone to be reckless, mischievous or whatever. They have a duty of care and they can be negligent. A claim could be made against them for being negligent....the fact that they had a right to cut forms a part of the picture but doesn't offer a sound defence. The fact that there is no alternative to cutting the roots clearly explains why the roots were cut but again doesn't allow negligent or reckless behaviour. I don't think this makes a mockery of the law.....things can just be a bit more complicated than we might like.

You're quite right - what happens in Court will depend upon the facts so things could go either way. What we need to do is identify good practice, within the law and promulgate it. That way the matter should never get anywhere near a Court! The common law right of self-help establishes that one landowner can abate a nuisance caused by encroaching roots and branches. It's likely that anyone cutting roots will have a duty of care to anyone within falling distance of the tree so it could be argued that they could be blamed for any consequence of cutting of roots. So they have both a right and a duty of care. It's up to the cutter as to how they comply with their duty of care. Writing to the tree owner, giving them adequate notice of the root cutting and indicating that you think the tree will/may become unstable seems the very least you should do. Giving them a date and time and suggesting what they might need to do - employ a consultant, remove the tree etc - might be just as reasonable, depending on the consequences of tree failure. If the tree become immediately unstable (ie the same day) and the tree owner did nothing I think it could be argued that the cutter bore some of the blame for whatever happened and the cutter might need to take appropriate safety measures - close a road for example. If the tree was about to fall onto the cutter's house then we would all know who to blame! If the tree fell down in 5 days after cutting you would be in a very grey zone; if it fell in 5 years time I think it would be a different matter.

You have to produce a plan that is clear and gets your "message" across - whatever item(s) your plan is designed to show. It's almost impossible to include ALL received information on your plan without mucking up your plan so turn off what you don't need and put your label on. In terms of copyright there are a variety of issues which simply put are probably well beyond your paygrade: 1) the baseplan has probably come from OS; the OS copyright might be time limited; you may be given the OS licence number for reproduction or it might have disappeared in the design process. 2) the topographic survey company may have issued some copyright restriction to its client but it would be a stupid client who hadn't insisted on a licence agreement to use the survey for his site.....so it should be a matter for your client (whoever that is.....you may not know!) 3) other companies/people may have added layers/information and they may have added templates/information. I have never come across anyone worried about copyright in terms of use of the information for the immediate project. If you were to copy a design across to some other project it would be a different matter. You can acknowledge other's inputs in your report but i don't think you need to specifically include them on the plan. My template has a box for "reliant on..." or similar but this is more for a version number rather than an acknowledgement of copyright. Things become more complex when the developer changes and a new developer may have inheritied/"bought" reports from the previous developer. That is one reason why letters of reliance are required/requested and so the new developer does not have to start from scratch. Jon

As others have indicated what (full) planning consent provides is permission to undertake tree works that are NECESSARY in order to implement what has been permitted. This does not necessarily include all tree works listed in a tree survey.....unless the permission explicitly refers to the tree report and plans and even then the ice might not be quite as thick as you would like for 100% safety. The 2016 Barney Smith judgment took this issue apart at some length. Barney-Smith & Anor v Tonbridge and Malling Borough Council [2016] EWCA Civ 1264 (09 December 2016) There is at least one Council that appears to have taken a hard line on this; I expect many others are more pragmatic but I would be careful if you are relying on this exception to protected status and the tree work is not strictly necessary.

....depends what you mean by "anything"! If you mean physical hard work, I shied away from that a long time ago - I prefer just to talk about work - it's easier and better paid (don't tell anyone, everyone will be onto it). Seriously, I have no idea what the limits are; I merely know that the test does necessitate me knowing that they have changed the colours of fire extinguishers (they're all red now - clearly having different colours just confused people; now you have to read the small print before putting a fire out) and a few other fine details which I have probably forgotten. I haven't come across any fires recently other than at the Fire Service College in Gloucestershire and they set light to things like trains, supermarkets, planes and have their own motorway to play with. As for cars, they do half a dozen at a time. Their fire extinguishers are all red too but have four or more wheels and half a dozen guys who jump out the back. The guys are mostly from Afghanistan and Iraq you'd have thought they had enough fires at home to practice with? Jon

Does depend what you are doing on site. I have my new CSCS card in front of me valid until Jan 2022 as a Construction Site Visitor. http://www.cscs.uk.com To get it required a visit to a test centre and a touch screen multiple choice test. £19.50 for the Health, safety and environment test for operatives test. It's a basic test that should screen out idiots.

Remember you are (or at least should be) paying employer's NI of 13.8% so the extra is not that much extra and if all employer's do the same it's a level playing field. Go to Europe and you will see what real social charges employers are bearing there! I am afraid I find employer's attitudes a sign of what a piss poor country we have already become and this small step forward reverses a little bit the free for all and the awful poverty trap created in this country......and I'm a capitalist! Having seen Directors and Owners pocket millions whilst their staff suffer at work because the employer won't set up a reasonable system of sick pay I have little sympathy. I had a sick care worker cough and splutter over my 95 year old mother the other day....surprise surprise.....she had a cold a few days later. I wonder why?

I agree: a mis-identification in the TPO does not make the TPO uninforceable but clearly if there is doubt as to which tree is protected then if it ever came to a defence in a court room you can predict the likely defence......it's a criminal court so all the defendent needs to establish is reasonable doubt. Having a mis-identification gives a good entry point for establishing that.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2017/178/contents/made The Plant Health (Sweet Chestnut Blight) (England) Order 2017 came into force yesterday and applies from tomorrow. It will make it illegal to move sweet chestnut material including plants, logs, branches, foliage and firewood out of, or inside, zones within a 5 kilometre (3.2 mile) radius of infected sites. The same restrictions apply to oak within 1 kilometre (0.62 mile) of the sites. Initially two areas have been demarcated and the exact details of the boundaries of the zones can be found at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plant-health-controls#quarantine-pests or Sweet chestnut blight - Tree pests and diseases. And if you want to know in words - one area is near Ilfracombe and the other on the west bank of the River Exe opposite Exmouth. Exceptions to this movement prohibition include oak or sweet chestnut material entering and exiting the zones without stopping. For example, the delivery of plants, logs or firewood which start and end their journeys outside the zones is permitted. Other exceptions may also be granted in certain circumstances by the Forestry Commission and APHA.

Attached Picture taken in 2010 - hope it comes through. Still there today https://tinyurl.com/z27bf6s or at least Sept 2014 shown on google street views Zoom in and you will see they have built the balconies around the tree.

There was an appeal in process but as PINS were told the tree blew down they will not be issuing a decision notice. As for where the responsibilities lie, the Courts have clearly stated that all an applicant has to do is show on the balance of probabilities that an outcome is likely. In such circumstances the Council would be liable for any loss or damage arising if they were to ignore evidence provided with an application. Lands Tribunal has ruled very clearly on this. Amenity is irrelevant with regards to compensation. In this case we have two inspections made 10 years apart - such evidence is typically missing and IMO is highly valuable. In addition, there is a clear recommendation for removal of one tree.....but do the photos show that two trees failed?