Andy Clark

Anyone? Struggling to understand how there seems to be no information on such a massive change to the industry.

You can download open source maps for free - such as Open Street Map. MapQuest Open is a good tool to let you select and save an area of Open Street Map, which you can then edit using something even as simple as Microsoft Paint. If you want something a bit more techy and detailed than MS Paint, Serif DrawPlus will let you edit pics in a lot more detail, and then save/export to pdf or CAD format. Reasonably priced too at around £80 I think for the latest X8 version. Older X6/X7 software versions are considerably cheaper - and all are a hell of a lot cheaper than several £000's for an autocad licence, whilst still doing pretty much the same thing.

Hi Paul, That seems to differ from the statements within the Arb Magazine article - in as far as Simon reports that reps from the AA had already met with FISA directly on 3rd March to begin collaboratively working. That being said, if that process between FISA and the AA was already in place some 2 months prior to the AFAG meeting of the 12 May, one can certainly start to understand why no one else turned up. Would have been a pretty pointless meeting by the sound of it. With regards the consultation, taken on board that in closed last week, but again from the article Simon clearly reports that the results of the consultation were to be presented at the next FISA/AA meeting at the end of May. In which case, considering you say that the consultation closed on the last day of May, I'm struggling to even see how the results could have even been populated, even if the FISA/AA meeting was also on the same 31st May. Nonetheless, the consolation has closed, and the results have been shared with FISA. The AA still don't seem to have made any effort with sharing those results with the rest of the Arb industry - bearing in mind that the results of the consultation are supposedly representative of the Arb Industry. Another trawl of trees.org, and there is not even a mention of the consultation, let alone any information pertaining to the results. All smelling very cloak and dagger I'm afraid. I think the thing that needs to be taken on board is that the ramifications for this are MASSIVE for the industry. Like, astronomically HUGE! Some might say that the AA reporting now directly to FISA, goes to not only undermine, but actually UNDO everything that the AA was even set up to achieve 50 years ago - which was of course to promote the Arboriculture industry in it's own right and step out from under the umbrella of Forestry. The FISA collaboration certainly appears, so far at least, to put us firmly back under it.

One thing I have always agreed strongly with from David's surmise, regards the national statistics - in as far as it being, not only important, but essential, to keep the statistics in context. In every presentation I have given relating to tree surveying and appropriate levels of tree management, I always build in a slide that puts the stats into context - and that generally goes along the lines of.... Each year between 5 and 6 people in the UK are killed when trees fall on them. Thus the risk of being struck and killed by a tree falling is extremely low. Around 3 people are killed each year by trees in public spaces; but as almost the entire population of the UK is exposed, the risk per person is about one in 20 million. (taken from HSE SIM 01/2007/05) Odds of drowning in a bathtub: 1 in 685,000 Odds of being struck by lightning: 1 in 576,000 Odds of being killed by lightning: 1 in 2,320,000 Odds of being considered possessed by Satan: 1 in 7,000 Odds of getting canonized: 1 in 20,000,000 I do this, as I find that often landowners/customers ultimately have no idea of what the output numbers mean following a tree RA, and thus is imperative to keep things in perspective and not have them "knee jerk" into making hefty decisions that in some cases need not be made. For example, in relation to the retrospective QTRA assessment carried out by David on the Felbrigg Beech, he concluded a risk rating of 1:720,000 - meaning that, in context, there was a greater chance of any one of those children either drowning in the bath, or being struck by lightning. Given that we generally tend to understand and accept the risk of drowning in the bath, do we, as either a society or simply as an individual parent, stop our kids from having a bath? Course we don't. Do we keep our children locked away at the first sign of a storm. Not at all, we still kick them out of the door at school time and tell them to stop moaning and grin and bear getting wet. So I think it is imperative to not get swept away with placing an over-importance on numbers that can often be misinterpreted/misunderstood, and use that as a rationale to promote/defame one RA system over another.

Yeah, and that's what concerns me. Hush-hush generally tends to be for a reason - and often not a good one.

Since all the hoo-haa a few weeks ago with the ISA-UK & I chapter, has anyone managed to get to the bottom of what's going on? Spoke with a few people at the show yesterday, but no one seems to know much about what the problem is and when/if the chapter will be re-kindled. (or if they did know they were being very tight lipped) Is anyone in the loop and have any news?

Hi Paul, You were right, busy man yesterday. Tried to collar you and say hi on the stand a few times, but always up to your eyes in it whenever I popped in. Hope you've managed to get some rest. Been through trees.org, and a search of the site only returns 1 result bearing any sort of relation or mention towards FISA - and that was the announcement in '13 of the new Chair of FISA. (albeit I have just searched again, and that now result seems to have vanished.) From the article in the most recent Arb Magazine, Simon does seem to state pretty clearly that the AA has been consulting with Members and Approved Contractors. I would have thought this would have read differently if the consultation was open industry wide.

Were we though? In the Arb side I mean? I can find nothing, either in magazine format or on the big wide t'interweb, other than a few small print bottom of the page snippets, that mentions anything of this in relation to the Arb industry.

Jaime, i'm not an AA member, nor AAAC, so have no idea or even knowledge of the survey monkey consultation until reading about it an hour ago in the complementary mag from yesterday. A quick trawl of trees.org didn't turn up any info or links either. Perhaps any AA members or AAAC that view this thread would be so kind as to share any info regarding the consultation. Thanks.

So it would therefore appear that my suspicions were right, and that AFAG has in fact been disbanded! Not sure whether to find it alarming at the moment, but it appears that the replacement for AFAG is Forestry representation being allocated to FISA, an organisation jointly made up of all the sub sectors involved in Forestry, with, by contrast, Arboricultural representation now being solely at the input of the AA. When considering that the Arb input into the old AFAG group was made up of a number of relevant industry bodies from across the whole spectrum of the Arb industry - including the ISA, NATO, the LGE, the MTOA et al, i'm keen to learn, and understand, what the AA will be doing to ensure that the entire industry will still be achieving equal due representation as was afforded by the old AFAG set up. It appears, from the article so far, that, although the article draws reference for the need to consult industry sectors to represent industry needs, the AA have only been consulting their own membership base and their own AAAC. Can someone please tell me this is not the case?

Oooo, so, coincidentally, after reading through the recent Summer 2015 copy of the Arb Magazine that I picked up at the show yesterday, I appear to have found the info that I have been after.....

The current Arb magazine still gives Simon Richmond and Karl Lee (UAG) as being the AA reps that sit on the AFAG group - I think Alex Laver was the ISA rep the last time I checked, and Tim Wetherill was the MTOA rep. As I recall the TCIA and the NATO spots were never filled. The point being though that AFAG, as I understand, and I mean the actual group of people, not the publications, has been disbanded. A quick trawl through the AFAG pages of the HSE website even shows the last meeting as being May'14 - leaving speculation that there hasn't been a meeting of the joint committee since. An even further trawl back through past minutes shows the AA voicing concerns as far back as '13 that a split between Arb and Forestry would emerge with the rise of FISA.

From that link..... "HSE's main route of liaison with the tree work industry is through the Arboriculture and Forestry Advisory Group (AFAG), a key working group of the Agriculture Industry Advisory Committee (AIAC). AFAG provides authoritative guidance widely accepted as describing good industry practice, in GB and internationally.". But as I understand it, AFAG has been disbanded - hence trying to find out what has now taken it's place in terms of Arb.

After a few conversations yesterday on the subject at the AA show, most of which didn't really give any answers, I'm trying to find out who now heads up Health and Safety "advise/guidance" in the industry? I mean, we used to have the AFAG committee, with reps from both Arb and Forestry in consultation with the HSE - but that was disbanded, giving rise to FISA a little over a year ago. 12 months on and FISA still seems to be purely Forestry focussed, so who now carries the mantle for Arb following on from AFAG? Any ideas?

Look on the bright side though mate..... we brought you a nice present as a big thank you. Seriously though, was a good day out. MUCH better than previous years. A lot of stands, and a lot of old faces.

I just have to share this, as I cannot believe it with my own eyes...... We are currently heading to Westonbirt, or so we thought. When we pull up outside the AA office in Stroud Green, suprised, the driver realises that he entered the AA's office adress into the sat nav, not the adress of the actual show! Considering we've been on the road for 3 1/2 hrs already, us passengers, somewhat disgruntled, are then faced with the announcement that he used the adress from the BACK of the show flyer, not the adress of westonbirt that was plastered all over the front! Tommy B, you are a div.

I'll hold my hands up that it's a bit of a hollow victory After much trawling of the t'interweb the digitised book can be downloaded from Google Books - https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=UaMyAAAAIAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=rights+and+liabilities+as+to+trees+and+woods&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BIxxVYTTJ4mqUfKXgbAG&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false My favourite section is Chapter 21, which contains ye olde worlde precursor to the TPO regs..... " Chapter XXI Protection to Trees, etc., by Criminal Law. By the Criminal Law Consolidation Statute of 1861, c. 96, relating to larceny and other similar offences, after providing that all larcenies shall be of the same nature, it is provided s. 32 et seq., that any person who shall steal, or cut, break, root up, or otherwise destroy or damage with intent to steal, the whole or any part of any tree, sapling, or shrub, or any underwood, respectively growing in any park, pleasure ground, garden, orchard, or avenue, or in any ground adjoining or belonging to any dwelling house, shall, if the value of the article or articles stolen, or injury done, exceeds one pound, be guilty of felony, and punished as in the case of simple larceny. The same result is to attend a similar offence, elsewhere than in the situations thus described, if the value exceed 5l. Similar stealing or injury, in any place whatever, if to the amount of one shilling, may be made the subject of conviction by one Justice of the Peace, and of a fine of 5l. besides the value; and for a second offence, a person may be convicted in like manner, and imprisoned, with hard labour, for twelve months; and a third offence is to be deemed felony, and punished as simple larceny: a provision is also made for persons stealing live or dead fences, and if the whole or any part of a tree, sapling, or shrub, or any underwood, or any part of a live or dead fence, being of the value of one shilling at least, shall be found in the possession or on the premises of any person, with his knowledge, and he cannot satisfy a Justice before whom he is taken or summoned, that he lawfully came by it, he may be fined two pounds besides the value. The same Act declares the punishment of simple larceny to be (unless otherwise specially provided for) penal servitude for three years, or imprisonment for two years, with or without hard labour, and with or without solitary confinement; and if a male under the age of sixteen years, with or without whipping. By the statute, c. 97, of the same year, 1861, relating to malicious injuries to property, provisions are made, s. 20, et seq., for punishment of persons maliciously injuring trees, shrubs, &c., very similar to those provided by the statute, c. 96., with respect to stealing, or cutting, or rooting up with intent to steal; but the malicious injury, if of the value of one shilling, may, in the first instance, be punished at the discretion of a justice, either by a fine (as in the case of stealing), or by imprisonment for three months, with or without hard labour; and the punishment for a third offence, if the value of one shilling, is to be the same as in the case of stealing, except penal servitude. There is also a provision for malicious injury to fences." Loving that males under the age of 16 could be whipped for breaching a "tpo"! They don't make them like they used to.

The crown jewel of my book shelf.... "Legal and Equitable Rights and Liabilities as to Trees and Woods". Or in other words, the 1800's version of Mynors. Rediculously outdated, but an absolutely fascinating read simply for the use of olde English. Free!

Not really. The guidance also makes reference to FC land, Aerodromes, and scheduled monuments. All of which come under the remit of a different Govt dept/quango. And the guidance for all those is the same..... that the LA should consult prior to serving - meaning I think it's fair to extrapolate that that would be the same across most Govt dept managed/owned land.

I think the wise man would be one who looked at all these different methodologies, be it risk assessment, valuation, or whatever, and had a good working knowledge of all. They are of course merely tools, and the more tools you have in your bag, along with the knowledge and experience of how/when to use them, the wider and deeper the pool of what you can offer to your customers.

Ok, perhaps the wrong choice of word - how about "Evolved". Agreed re the Arborist word. Although at least the yanks do have one word that progresses through their entire industry hierarchy - Climbing Arborist, Consulting Arborist, Municiple Arborist etc. With our free-for-all of an industry over here, we can't even agree on a common job title for most roles...... Climber, Tree Surgeon, Technician, Arboricultural Consultant, Arboricultural Groundworker, Groundsman, Tree Officer, Arboricultural Officer, Landscape Officer...... Potato Potato.

Okey doke, cheers chap.

Looks like it's been a while since there were any glitches, so sorry Steve for breaking the duck. Keep getting what looks like "fake" notifcations from the Arbtalk app coming up on my phone. I'm on a Galaxy Note 4 running the latest V5 Android - for probably a fortnight now, I will get what looks like a usual notification come up on my phone that someone has posted on a thread, but: - when I click on the notification and the APP opens, I then get an error message saying "Invalid thread ID is 204", and the App then just shows a blank screen. - the notification itself is also in gobledigook. It gives a name (of the poster) with "replied to:", and then the thread name is in what looks like Russian. I've attached a pic of the notification as it shows up. The pic is of how it shows on my Android Wear, but the notification shows up exactly the same as this on my phone. No real biggie I suppose, but i'm getting at least 10-15 of these notifications a day, so it's starting to get a tad annoying. Any ideas?

The response wasn't meant to be guarded, so my apologies if it came across that way. The problem with answering is that it is difficult to pinpoint a specific "XYZ" outcome, without knowing more details. I mean, the Govt is a BIG organisation.... with hundreds of varied and diverse departments which cover an equally diverse and varied spread of land types and uses. I mean, we could be talking here about some top secret nuclear facility under the MOD, Woodland under the Forestry Commission, or the car park of the local job centre under the DWP. So I tried to give a "general" answer that would cover the original question - in which you didn't want to go into detail. To answer your next question - I think the thing to best bear in mind is that it has to be in the public interest in order to serve the TPO in the first place. LA's generally don't dish out TPO's like sweeties. So it would be possible to assume a scenario whereby the Govt dept wanted to do something that flew in the face of public interest, to which the LA wanted to try and put a stop to. Sorry but again, without knowing more details, it's difficult to give a definitive answer.

Acer, An earlier post from Paul B contained an explanation by Mark Cheter of CAS - "The Consulting Arborist Society recognises a number of skills whereby an arboricultural consultant can demonstrate competency. These are known as Areas of Professional Competency (APCs). The first APC, which was the starting point for founding the society back in 2003, was the Mortgage course. QTRA was added in 2005. Several years ago, all of the courses were reviewed to ensure they fitted the model with assessment of competency. Lantra’s Professional Tree Inspector qualification was added at this time. A limitation of QTRA is that not only is there no minimum entry requirement, there is also no assessment of a candidate’s competency. Operators use the system under license. It therefore does not fit in to the CAS model. As such, the CAS Board of Directors has recommended that it should no longer be recognised as a CAS Competency. The ISA’s Tree Risk Assessment Qualification (TRAQ), by contrast, has a minimum entry requirement and delegates need to be qualified to at least level 2 in arboriculture. Assessment follows two full days of classroom and field exercises, and consists of two practical tree inspections and a 100 question Multiple Choice paper, all of which is overseen by the ISA. It is critically acclaimed and internationally recognised. It also fits the CAS model." The salient point to take I think, is with CAS being the Consulting Arborist Society, but QTRA however being open/applicable/achievable to non arbs - thus, "QTRA does not an Arborist make", and thus CAS can not necessarily safely accredit a QTRA user as even being an Arborist, let alone a consulting level one..... Which kinda defeats the overall purpose of the Consulting Arborist Society and what the organisation tries to achieve. TRAQ however is tree specific, with training only open to peeps with Arb experience and quals, so thus more closely mirrors the aims of the society. I certainly don't see it as an indication that CAS is implying one system is "better" or "worse" than the other, as the thread seems to have degenerated to. It is simply their choice, in relation to the aims of their organisation.