daltontrees

Another small nail in the coffin of Arbtalk as a credible contribution to arboriculture.

Assuming you are in England.... 2012 Regulations 15.—(1) Section 211(a) (preservation of trees in conservation areas) shall not apply to— .... (b) the cutting down of a tree in accordance with a felling licence granted by the Forestry Commissioners under Part II of the Forestry Act 1967 (Commissioners’ power to control felling of trees); So, applyfor and get license. FC should consult with Council. Doing it the other way round is no use, CA consent is not exemption from requirement for license.

Let me be the first. We don't even know what the owner has asked.

What have you been asked? Has the owner said, what do you think I should do with this tree? There has to be some objective. Does he want to keep it but is worried about risk? Does he want to get rid of it but feels bad about it? What?

I think it has to be asssumed that as with plannng permission the tree obligation runs with the land (s.207 1990 Act), so the current owner could be het. But prosecuting a 2nd hand owner would I think be less potent, as there can be no asssumption of wilful disregard of the requirement. Liability ends after 4 years unless tree replacement notice served.

Ridiculously restricted choices. Tulip tree, an aggressive monster, won't stop till 20m. Pin oak much smaller and there's even a dwarf version. Think 10m. Fickle about soil pH. Nyssa also smaller (10m) and also pH sensitive. Or tell the TO that the birch is native and suitable for the situation and soil, and let him try and serve a Tree Replacement Notice requiring another species.

If you purchase and the original owner is away there is possibly less likelihood of comeback on you. On the face of it a birch is as good as sycampre, and considerably less light demanding so better near habitation.

That is or was a japanese maple, slow to grow and poor at recovering from pruning, especially major pruning. You might get somewhere asking the police to prosecute for criminal damage. Ignore those on here who are advising (hopefully in jest) spiteful and childish retribution. Arbtalk is a total embarrasment sometimes, especially when members of the public come asking for advice. We don't all have pooh fixations, honest.

Then you'd be as big an arsehole as the neighbour...

There are 3 tests and possibly a 4th. Is the location as close as possible to the original, within reason? Is the size as required by the condition (this is a matter of fact that can be checked by height and stem girth)? Is the species appropriate? The last is the hardest, because 'approriate has no defined meaning nor has there been any case law on it that might enlighten. I would advise a client to create a definition based on the amenity the previous tree presented and whether the replacement will do the same. This is probably mostly a question of scale (mature height and spread) but there may be limitations due to soil type and ground water and other factors like susceptibility of buldings to subsidence. The 4th test would be whether the Council has approved the replacement, in which case the other tests don't matter. I'd check with the Council..

In Soctland the Government has just agreed to a change to teh rules about woodburners and beoeat heating systems. A couple of years ago it became a requirement of new building warrant applicaitons that direct emission heating systems (basically, gas, coal and oil boilers) will no longer be acceptable. This included woodburning and peat burning systems. But as of last month after a consultaiton it has agreed to change the rules for wood and peat, allowing these. Initially the case was argued for rural and island communities, but the change applies now the the whole country.

Doesn't look like resinaceum to me, looks very much like adspersum. If so, mildly parasitic, will probably do for the tree eventually but not anytime soon. I've had one on the edge of a paddock recently absolutely covered in brackets. The solution is to reduce the height as early as possible so that you're not adversely affecting its ability to fight off decay too much but seeing off the risk of windthrow in the longer term. A height reduction might be cheaper than fencing.

Well, what a waste of time this has been...

I can't understand why digging between the roots and replacing with a CCS will help. That would definitely damage roots and remove rooting volume, albeit small. A CCS would have to go entirely over existing roots and soil. There will be roots present, GPR will only tell you where they are . You could find that out with an air spade. Any of these investigative methods will not be a solution they will only let you know if a solution is possible. You don't need consent to investigate root distribution, so however you do it you should possibly do it before you re-apply. There's always more to these situations than we are told, but essentially if the application is to build a driveway over a TPO tree roots the Council should not approve it unless it is satisfied that a solution is possible such that it can grant permission subject to realistic conditions. It shouldn't say yes you can have adriveway but you can't start until you prove to us that no damage will be done to the tree. So an appeal would come down to whether you have provided a workable solution, ideally one that represents industry best practice. Correct me if I'm wrong but it sounds like you don't yet know where the roots are (depth and position) and the solution sounds to me either unsatisfactory or at best dependent on very favourable (and unlikely to be so) root investigations. An appeal should cost nothing, you aren't allowed to provide new information at an appeal, but it will take time and might fail. We only know a fraction of the facts, so can't really advise on whether to appeal. Based on story so far, appeal doesn't sound promising. An appeal would probably take into account that this is not essential access, particularly if the garage has permission that doesn't rely on a new access.

Lucille!