Jon Heuch

In Wales - Bat Conservation Trust Find Your Local Bat Group - Bat Conservation Trust IMO You're probably best not to indicate that you are interested in getting training in order to make money from bat surveys..........they don't seem to take that sort of approach too well. Ecological consultants may also be interested in using your services. CIEEM might give you some leads.

Mynors quotes (page xlii) "EG9" .....from which I assume you will need access to the Estates Gazette probably the 1960 volume....that's probably the only record of the case that there is. It may be available on line if you have a sub.

Where did you get that idea from? And how are you going to calculate a % split - based on land area covered by the crown? biomass? Area of the bole on each side of the boundary, remembering that anything above the ground may not reflect the % split of what is actually in the ground i.e. if all the roots are on one side of the boundary (with a wall for example) but the bole starts to grow over.....? Whilst your approach may have a practical attitude to addressing a problem it's not supported in law, is it?

C: It's best to avoid an air gap between soil and antenna so running the radar along a specific gap like this should be avoided. it's not that it won't work, it will just be difficult (not impossible) to compare with other scans either side. In practice ground is rarely dead flat and interruptions are common and it's just a fact of life. D: The reflection from the base of the wall should be sufficient to mask all signs of roots. I have been in discussions with people as to whether, if the antenna was angled at 45 degrees, you might be able to ascertain the depth of building foundations.....possibly, but I don't think it's a starter but it might be an interesting project. E: on the whole the radar antenna is too big to fit into the gap between tree and wall (as seen in the photo). The antenna could be placed out of it buggy in or near this area but it would be difficult to provide a plan of what was found. It might be useful if you backed up any findings with some excavation to ground truth root presence......but if you are going to do that might you not just start with some excavation....?

.....and of course if you do have a lot of capital expenditure with the potential to claim back VAT the rate that HMRC will accept for you for the flat rate scheme may mean it is not for you. The difficulty is that you have to choose a rate (based on a list they provide) and they may only query your choice of flat rate during an inspection.......but why would they need to inspect you if you are paying on the flat rate?.....all they need to do is make sure you have all your invoices include VAT and you are not missing out any cash receipts.

It's an individual business decision, depending on your cost structure - you could be better off, you could be worse off. The beauty of it, once HMRC have accepted your chosen rate, is that there is certainty over what you are paying: the amount you pay HMRC is just a percentage of turnover. You don't have to add up all your receipts, worry about whether they show VAT or not. I am not sure what receipts you do need to show/keep but it does make calculations much simpler. And remember you can pay on a cash basis rather than an accruals basis - so if you have any regular late payers you are not paying the tax man before collecting money from your customers.

Not quite sure what your question is: Can it be used on level ground - yes. Can it be used on steep ground - yes. It becomes more difficult, just as it becomes more difficult to push a child in a pushchair on steep ground. It would also be possible to take the radar antenna out of its buggy and search for the main roots coming from the base of each tree - it's a bit laborious but quicker than airspading; the results can be truthed by some simple poling (not in the car park or on hard surfaces!) or even excavation as visual confirmation removes any uncertainty. But neither of these factors, are deciding factors. Based on the photo that started this train off: It would be possible to put a series of scans across the grassed area below the trees. It would be possible to put a series of scans over the car park, provided it was car free! It would then be possible to compare them for rooting activity. As for cost, it would depend on the location and the service provider.

Ha ha ha! Without knowing the relative ages of car park and trees (and associated excavations) and without having some information on the depth of any footings of a retaining wall I would say anything is possible in these circumstances - there could be big roots under the carpark; there could be nothing. There is a tree in a big city near me that has cost the local council a lot of money. There is a long established two-way tarmac road between said tree and building. It might be reasonable to assume no roots under the road but a large root has turned up to the extent that direct damage is reported. What the tree is feeding on is anybodies guess but I would steer clear from saying there are no roots without some evidence

You are quite right to ask the question. I suggest that a little pragmatism is required as there is no definitive answer - the wording of BS5837 doesn't give a clear steer. I have been in the same situation and can say I have wasted resources getting involved in this sort of thing. Questions to ask: 1) is it quite clear which trees are likely to be affected i.e. is an architect, planner (consultant or council) possibly going to say at a later date, let's move everything my 1, 5 or 10 metres? You thought you knew which trees "require work" but now the goalposts have changed? And are service runs likely to come into the site from unknown locations? You can't answer the latter in most cases until later, but it is an issue. 2) how significant is the landscape loss going to be? how sensitive as to how many trees are removed? will it matter if a few more trees are removed than are indicated on your plan? 3) is there a topographic plan showing the location of all the trees to be surveyed? If not, BS5837 rules have been "broken" so confusion is possible as no-one really knows which trees people are talking about. Surveying woodland trees without a topo plan is a recipe for confusion. Please tag the trees! 4) is it likely that a contractor will need to be instructed to remove individual trees, rather than just lines marked on the ground and told to remove all trees within the lines? If you need to point out individual trees it is really useful to have tags. 5) What's the tree officer in the Council likely to accept? Makes sense to cut corners if practicable but if the Council will only accept a full BS5837 someone has saved money, only to end up wasting months as discussions with the Council are based on inadequate information. I've been there, I can tell you! I've been in woodlands where the topographic survey has been expanded on at least three times and still didn't cover every tree. Two years on, planning permission has been agreed but still hasn't been granted properly. I always think twice before accepting a BS5837 with a woodland - it can be simple at one extreme but at the other it can be a tree by tree nightmare.

You might want to consider three things - 1) planning permission 2) licensing of a public event 3) new access to the public highway. You may need to deal with different parts of the same Council or even different Councils (District/Borough and County), depending on your area.

Depends where you are. Bedgebury is clearly the best place to go for a wander but if you are a long way away you might have to settle for something less comprehensive. Also depends on what level you want to study - genus, species or cultivar? Kent Wildlife Trust has held a one day walk around with botanist Ros Bennett but I cannot find their normal timetable of events on their website. Worth giving them a call. if you want to differentiate species of spruce, fir and to a lesser extent pine you will need a) a hand lens b) a key - Mitchell's book has several and you will need to become acquainted with the various characters used in the key. Until you have mastered them I wouldn't bother seeking other keys. This takes time and commitment; some of the features will drive you potty as some features are variable so it is only experience with the trees that will get you going in the right direction. If you are interested in cultivars RHS Wisley might be of some use. If you are interested in the basics the FSC Tree identification courses - FSC . In fact Ros Bennett (as above) is running one of them.

There are two routes this can proceed down; they are not mutually exclusive, although the police might suggest they are "This is a civil matter......." Just because you have the right for a civil claim does not prevent a criminal prosecution. If you do manage to get police attention (and it really is luck) the value of the tree is only relevant as to whether it ends up in the Crown court or gets dealt with in the Magistrates. However, the police might give more attention to a larger value item. I think the threshold values between the two courts have changed. However, you will clearly need to identify who did the deed - probably the individual but you may need to start with the company or contractor. The CPS may take it up on the basis that they don't want to see other people doing this sort of thing. The outcome, if successful, will be a financial charge of which you may see nothing. They may end up with a community order or something similar so no cash at all is involved. You can pursue a civil claim - wholly dependent on your evidence if the police don't collect any - and your risk. Again you will need the name of someone or company to pursue. You will be seeking damages to rectify the situation. All sorts of issues and potential disagreements over what you might successfully claim.......but if of low value you could pursue via a moneyclaim claim on line - a mere £35 or so initial cost. Costs would rise to enforce any court order.

I don't think you need to go that far; the message has been heard and progress is being made. An organisation that has 2500 members yet feels it is only able to promote the workings of a small proportion is strange. What the end result is, however, has not yet been determined.

Ed, you're correct in the detail and of course the ICF requirement is far more than being in any job; my point however is that you have to show 2600 hours professional experience for full ICF membership. Working for 1600 hours a year (if you are lucky!) you can accumulate such experience over a two year period. If you have a job with some financial, personnel and planning responsibilities you can achieve this in the first half of your career. To be an AA RC, especially if you are an "expert" as in an expert witness, I would expect you to be in at least the second half of your career i.e. you've got quite a lot of experience. You can still be an expert in some arboricultural competence areas without having the necessary experience to be an ICF member and may not be particularly useful at putting pen to paper. I can listen all day to people who work with trees every day, experience wildlife, know their fungi and all sorts of things I will never know. I am afraid your comment about Gloucestershire is a bit too cryptic for my simple mind. Perhaps you can remind me what you need to think about??!!

There are different things going on here: i) standard of the individual to get into the club ii) promotional effectiveness of the scheme There should be no doubt that becoming an AA RC requires more effort and a broader range of technical skills and experience than becoming a full member of the ICF. You only need to show 2 years experience to become a full member of the ICF. For a variety of reasons the AA's scheme has a much higher profile than the ICF list.....so it is not surprising that both AA schemes - AC and RC - should get people in contact. Usefulness of both organisation's websites is also important and both are.....not exactly up to date with their accessibility. Searching to create a list is a little stone-age. A map/geographic search would now be the norm (see the CAS website). Trouble with expert witness training is that it doesn't make experts out of non-experts; it teaches people how to be witnesses. You don't need to be a member of either the ICF or the AA (or any other body) to undertake expert witness training so we end up with "CUEW" who are not....experts!

I agree, the assumptions, limitations etc all need a full explanation in any valuation. The simple statement and re-statement of the number achieved is just misleading. I think you need to give the 9th Edition of CTLA a little acknowledgement as it does recognise "other" valuation methods - Income and Market in particular, but indicates that arborists may not be the best people to use these. As a result the guide provides few details and focuses on the Cost based approach. I think the basic issue is that valuation is full of pitfalls, hurdles and dead-ends and it takes quite a lot of experience and training to make any real sense of things. Mixing arboriculture and environmental valuation has been achieved without the "Valuation for dummies" textbook that should be judged rather similar to "Brain Surgery for beginners" (you can read it but please don't practice it without a bit more experience). Most arbs have been on a single (or possibly two) day course focused on a single valuation method or maybe a few valuation methods. My experience is that arbs don't want to be told how difficult things are, especially in a training course. They want it nice and simple: follow steps A to D and then you have the answer. This has some merits, but also some great big problems. The London i Tree study provides a neat example, containing both a CTLA and a CAVAT "valuation". The journalists and communicators need a headline so what does the AA report: "8 million trees worth £6.1 billion to the capital the wider benefits (ecosystem services) in respect of.." all too predictably the valuation of the ecosystem services is mixed with the "replacement cost" and then for some reason a CAVAT valuation only around 7 times this replacement cost is thrown in. It's a right mess for anyone who wants to use these figures with any credibility!

I have one comment - who the **** are you? That's said flippantly & jokingly, but the quality, quantity and frequency of your postings are both exceptional and stimulating. Clearly you either do this sort of thing for a living or you don't have a living to make????? with admiration and thanks, but please come out of the closet. Maybe every else knows you but I am just mystified.

A simple comment but it's not really a "vested" interest - ISA is one of the members of the CTLA group. The ISA - normally through one individual - have authorship rights so it would be strange to agree the text and then start criticising it. As with any document that has been agreed by a committee, representing several organisations, there are compromises and the achievement is that there is a document at all. The fact that it has developed through several editions reinforces this. However, the problems that the same group are having in order to develop and agree a 10th Edition reflects the array of interests and differing views that can be brought to bear on valuation. As I believe you are a RICS member you will be well aware of these issues. To say that CTLA has obvious failings is a statement of the obvious, just as the Red Book has failings or any other system of valuation has failings especially if you take a different view on any one or more of the assumptions made.

>> I have searched the 5837:2012 pdf - you're right no mention of bats. There is nothing to suggest that the presence of bats or potential for bats makes a tree have 'conservation' value. >> Your point does raise a number of issues: Who is undertaking BS5837 surveys - arborists. What is their baseline competence wrt ecology, conservation and habitat assessments? Probably very low (based on training) but actually very mixed depending on experience and interest. BS8596 lists (s 5.2) a whole range of features for potential roost features. it would be possible for arborists to record these but the bureaucracy of BS8596 requires a record to be kept even if they have not been found. But look where 5837 is mentioned in BS8596 - "Section 4 Other relevant considerations" - hardly mainstream to the overall BS. That section clearly gold-plates the legislation and interprets planning law and administration in a way that possibly local authorities don't acknowledge. It reads "The presence of bats or bat roosts in trees, and the importance of trees for foraging and commuting bats, should be assessed prior to a planning application being made." Really? Until this BS there was a reasonable assumption that if there were no features providing a roost there were no bats...and thus no reason to involve a bat ecologist, but this varies from Council to Council. Some have ecologists and are very active (e.g. see councils in Dorset). Others seem to much more relaxed (e.g. Luton?). Bat ecologists recognise features other than PRFs e.g. linear features as being important in the landscape. Very interesting but without evidence of bats how will an arborist know they are important? Secondly even if important are the linear features protected? Challenging for the novice arborist? The problem with BS 8596 is that it assumes bats are present in trees and woodlands until you show they are not and if there is the slightest chance of a PRF that is not low grade (section 5.2) a second survey is required. It's a licence to print money. Industry has already complained to the BS prior to promulgation but it fell on deaf ears. It will be interesting to hear if any LA insists on bat surveys for trees as I can imagine that if the trees are not going to be affected what is the need for a BS 8596 survey?......we can't tell if the trees are going to be affected at the time of an early BS5837 survey until the architect has made their plans ready. If the arborist gets approached late on when the architect plans are available it is easier to run things together but I am sure the developer won't be too happy to be told that a range of other surveys need to be undertaken ....just in case...as the application is just about to be submitted.

Can you give me details of which law this is? Thanks

Difficulty with this is that a woodland TPO, whilst protecting woodland, only does so by preventing a variety of acts one of which is damaging trees. There are all sorts of things that form an integral part of a woodland that aren't protected by the TPO. Whether the lack of protection is important or not will depend on a case by case basis. So the TPO doesn't protect the wildlife (insects, squirrels, jays) that might assist in the pollination and distribution of seed. It doesn't protect the soil, it doesn't protect the fungi (mycorrhizal or otherwise) and it doesn't protect shrubs and herbs. So a woodland TPO protects the trees of the woodland, not the whole woodland. The argument that a woodland TPO is there to protect the woodland so the word "tree" must cover the complete life cycle of future trees is just weak, at best. If someone were to collect all seed from a woodland, preventing germination it would not be illegal...but it would be damaging to the long term growth of the woodland.

Think he's got that wrong - the ecotype is normally a genetic strain arising from environmental pressure/selection in a particular environment. Collect the seed from a particular ecotype and you would expect certain features to be expressed in all trees (e.g. lodgepole pine provenances). It forms the whole basis for provenance testing in forestry. The use of the term "genetic coding" implies that the environment is influencing the coding itself rather than the form of the tree. Whilst epigenetic issues are no longer dismissed as Lamarkian phenotypic variation reflects a whole range of factors, some of which have nothing to do with genetics - competition for water, nutrients, light and the physical presence of objects whether they be stones in the soil, nearby trees, walls, roads etc. and/or wind. On the other hand with care we can select uniform trees, sometimes from seedlings but more readily from clones resulting in much less phenotypic variation.

......but for the most part some 35+ years out of date....! Even the third edition of Physiology of Trees didn't seem to bring things up todate. As for the North American bias which implies that all trees behave as northern temperate trees you have to see the limits. However, the depth and scope of observations are remarkable and well worth reading.

Others have provided some useful advice re competence and your limitations/expertise. I would not give legal advice but you could very usefully a) take some photographs of the hedge at the time of your visit, preferably with the photo imprint "ON" so each photo has the date on and b) ask your client if they have any photographs of the hedge prior to it being cut. Take photos showing the whole hedge and landscape and more detailed photos showing the quality of cut, height and any lack of privacy created. There are two avenues the legal dispute could go 1) in the Criminal Court if the police can be raised; unless the land/hedge is of some public importance or owned by someone who can pull some strings you are likely to get the response: " it's a civil matter" which it might be, but it is also a potential criminal case under Criminal Damage. 2) in the Civil Court. Unless you have experience of providing an Expert's report I would take photographs and provide a written quotation of the reasonable cost of undertaking whatever work you think would be worthwhile. Don't inflate your quotation and if you are being asked to add things on which you don't think are necessary break them down into separate items, making it clear what each covers. If you think providing a quotation is all you are going to get out of it I think it would be reasonable for you to charge for your time to visit, mileage and provide the quotation & photos. Don't stray from what you know. An expert may only be called in in 6 months time+ and your photos will be much appreciated and some work might come your way much later.....but don't depend on it.

Paul Are you aware of these: https://www.pocketdiagnostic.com/onlineshop/pocketdiagnostic/phytophthora/ I am afraid I have never used one, although someone gave me a sample a few years ago. They have a shelf life and I never came across a situation to use them so they went in the bin.