walkerboys

Completely agree. You can't have an authoritive control over something such as TPO's / conservation areas and have a commercial interest in it. It would be a huge conflict of interests. A council would need to be to prove a clear financial seperation between the different aspects of its operations, which it could not possibly do. VAT, corporation tax, are the staff in anyway subsidised by the tax payer, can council staff employ the tree contractors to work on their own property (anti bribery etc), split of equipment purchases/maintenance/depreciation, staff pensions, etc. No way this would stand up to property scrutiny.

 

I would email the leader of the council and copy in your MP, your local ward councillors and the leader of the opposition locally.

Now this is why I put it on arbtalk there's always some great advice 👍👍 glad you all have the same thoughts as me I lost a job I put the tpo application in for because it was that much cheaper for the council to do the job the home owner just paid me for the application a 3 day job the council priced it for 1 day but it took them 4 days to get it done we all miss price jobs from time to time but the council will never learn because they have nothing to lose

Well there you go. I can run an 9 man arb approved team with £250k's worth of kit and our annual costs are about £300k.. The private sector is way cheaper.

 

Imagine if all our LA's subbed out all their manual work, roads, refuse, housing... the deficit would be gone overnight.

The councils are all corrupt if work was contracted out that £400k a year would be less than halved

I've no real problem with this in principle - of the council guys are sitting about drinking tee waiting for a council job to do then why not contract them out and get their wages paid for a bit?

 

So long as.....

They charge the market rate for the work

They get asked to quote via the usual means rather than using inside information that only the council have access too

They operate at the same or better standards than their competition

 

biut if they can compete failry and put some cash back in no problem.

 

 

 

But I fear that the compete fairly might be a problem

So surely are council tax should go down if there making money but yet that won't happen I'd rather them sit round drinking tea than lowering all our prices

If the guys are sitting around drinking tea, get them paid off FFS! LA's are shutting libraries and public toilets and social care is massively underfunded, the money could be well spent elsewhere.

 

It costs an LA at least £300k a year to run a full time 4 man arb squad (i know it sounds a lot but I have that from a senior LA manager). My local council got rid of their arb squad years ago and just use private contractors when they need to. It must have saved them a fortune.

My mate in the council said all in there 3 man team costs £400k to run a year

Our council tree team also do private works, my council tax is underwriting my competition, that said I've never had a customer who's used them or had em in to quote

It's the tree officer that's pushing it every tpo job that he approves gets a quote sent with the confirmation

They can lose on every job but through the council books it's 100% profit as the teams,gear,trucks,Chipper's and stump grinder is already paid for by the tax payer if a 1 day job takes a week it doesn't matter

It's 100% true they run one team now doing council work and private work now there putting a second team on the road to do private/contracting work could this be stopped they put a price in for every tpo job and obviously it doesn't matter if they make a profit off the job because the council tax pays for the teams to run so if they quote cheap it doesn't matter

Hi

As the title says my local council is doing paid works so every tpo application that goes in to the council they send a quote to do the work and will there be a bit of well if you give us the work we will grant permission going on? is this a common thing and is it a good use of tax payers money I'm just looking for a few opinions on the situation

Thanks 👍

As title might be a daft question but who's the uk fae dealer

Thanks in advance for replies

Prices are area dependent round here man and grinder will be £350-450 for the day that's with a good machine

Have a look on the unimog rocks thread for skyhooks chipper mog trailer set up you won't find a much better set up than his. A C price is your man to speak to I used Atkinson vos a few times aswell they sell realy good chip boxes

Do you have any pictures of it in action

Hi this has probably been covered but does anybody have 1 what make and how good?got a price off seppi today and it was a suprise with all the bells and whistles £16990 £15500 standard I rang Rikco and there not selling them at the moment is there any other options?want to keep my Carlton 4012 for domestic didn't realy want to put 30k in a 7015 Carlton or big bandit

Thanks mark

Yeah they should, you are 100% correct. And the single reason they are not paid this is because companies aren't charging enough for the work. Everyone bemoans customers who are price shopping, but it all comes down to us at the end of the day. Business education is needed for the majority of tree companies. As a freelancer i've worked for quite a few companies over the years. Very few really know how to price work to realistically run a profitable business.

That's what I think they are worth. it is the same round here firms sending climber and a groundie out with van and chipper for £300 -£400 a day and it's not enuf the groundie will be on £50 and climber £80 a proper tree surgery team should be £500 minimum there's to meny willing to under cut!afew of my mates are plumbers sparckeys and teacher and wouldn't even think about setting off for less that £150 a day tree work deserves To be the same level

Surely in this day and age a good groundie would be worth £100 a day fully ticketed up with b+e and a good climber £120 just my opinion and also you just have the £50 a day brash draggers don't confuse them with a good groundie

She's a fair beast

 

I like that the conveyors save a lot of horse power compared to blowing chip

Bandit all the way but are heavy well built chippers backing it up mite give the clutch on your van some pain

Very good thread love mogs not sure if I would have anuther my old 1 has come up on eBay after a engine rebuild they do eat money but can make it aswell

Have a look at Atkinson vos website they used to have full tp range and web site

Burnley auction has a lot of ex council, utility's and electric board stuff normaly or foe ex army can be found on I bidder or bid spotter

Was it a bearing salesmen who told you that I always purge bearing il grease the main bearings on my grinder 4 or 5 times a day if it's flat out all day

I thought there was a climber in the trees but now I see he's in the ground stripping off the low branches.

I'll get back under the stairs.

Haha no worries think we fit 8 or 9 on a trailer load so stripped the bases rope in the ones that were leaning back me and nick are 17 stone a peice so can fairly pull on a rope we finished it today there's a massive pile of logs I've talked the bloke in to getting a man and processer in there's not much over 14 inch

To be honest its bloody good firewood, I would take any I was offered, it dries well in the round too, I love the stuff!!!

Very true but saves hand balling it all my mates going to come with his processor for the client

:thumbup:

All the wood is staying aswell had 1 person ask about wood and the owner saw this and said it has all got to stay he wants it all

And anuther