daltontrees

And your answers to q1 and 2?

Meant to say, I see this now and again in Privet.

A good explanation, this is known as 'leaf albinism' for short. Like all albinisms in plants and animals, it is an absence of usual pigments.

Leaf albinism.

His website describes QTRA. Spreadsheet seems a backward step, unless it's only a hazard assessment that's needed.

I dug 3 out last week, no bother. Basically got a pair of very sharp seccateurs an cut each clump of blades at the base, worked my way through the lot. The roots then came up no bother after slicing all round, then just had to flip it over and wallop it with teh edge of a spade till a lot of the earth fell off. Then I put it back in the hole upside down and jumped on it. Might not work but it felt gooood. 15 minutes each, didn't break a sweat.

You don't need consent in a Conservation Area, you tell the Council what you plan to do and it has 6 weeks to make a TPO to stop you. 95% of the time there is no Council letter to see, the Council is usually so busy it simply does nothing in response to a notification and when the 6 weeks are up, the owner is immune from prosecution. So, of course, is the contractor. And for the reasons explained at great length above, I disagree with you. I am a pro, I know what I am doing and I will get jobs where people who don't know how to contract out of CA obligations will needlessly walk away. It's not an excuse, it's a valid, lawful, business decision. Keep walking away, guys and gals... 95%, mmm...

If I knew the owner was deliberately goiung to break the law and not notify, I wouild probably be covered but I would probably decline to do the work. The reason would be my professional reputation, I don't want it sullied by association. As for the woder principle, I don't think the law has been directly tested, but there have been prosecutions in various TPO breach cases where the contractor was found partly or wholly guilty, presumably without any contracting out being in place. So I can't definitively answer the question exxept to say that if Mynors thinks R v Bournemouth is 'in point' then the principle of 'causing or permitting' has been tested as a point of law and found to be sound in a non-tree case. Good enough for me, but by now you may realise I amn't relying on that I am relying on bona fide contracting out.

Polyporus squamosus by the look of it.

That's still not the point. How many tree conbtractors go onto someone's land and cut down trees without the owner's permission. Rare. So if it can be assumed tha thte contractor is working for a land owner, it can be assumed (the law will assume an unwritten contract) that a contract exists. So whose decision is it to commit the Act? The landowner. Whose fault would it be to ignore CA controls? The landowner. It's then just a question of the owner and the contractor having decided between them whose job it was to check. The only excuses the landowner could offer was that he wasn't aware of the CA or that he wasn't aware that CAs protect trees or that he had to notify the Council or that the penalties fir failing to do so could be harsh. That is why I always tell custoomers about all these things. And then if required I agree with it the customer that he will check and notify, not me. This to me is s amuch better situation than not saying anything about whose responsibiliy it is. If nothing is said the potental for oversight is high and the consequences for prosecution and argument about blame is high also. I get it out in the open. Very low chance of oversight and, in my opinion (which is what matters to me in each case), no chance of me being prosecuted for the landowner's failings or attempted sneakiness.

That would be a pacta illicita and would therefore be void, protecting no-one.

But not unlike this Paulownia... Texas Invasives

I think it is useful to appreciate that clear law, whether statutory or common, does not generate case law. Case law is only part of law to fill in the blanks in otherwise established principles. The idea that parties to a contract can stse tha tey are not responsible for situations that might arise is so ancient and so well established that it has been enshrined in common law probably for a good 1000 years, possibly even 2000 years. It's so fundamnetal that it's not even tree law, it's just law. For specifics like Conservation Areas, there doesn't need to be case law for it to be clear what it means. Mynors did speculate that it needed clarified (not changed, but clarified) but I think it has remained robust. Anyway, it's not any sort of competiton about who knows more about law here, all I am saying is that I have contracted out of responsibility and I believe it is cmpetent to do so. Whether I am right has never been tested on me because either my customers have alwasys been honest or because the Council hasn't caught them or cared. I don't know and I don't need to know. Woudl I still do this? Yes, I did it this week with a new client. Obviously I can't breach confidentiality by explaining the details, but basically CA notification is proably required, he/she thinks he/she has it covered and on that basis will take responsibility, and I will be doing the work in 2 weeks' time without seeing any CA paperwork or case law.

That's not what I said. Firstly it's not a TPO it's a CA. Secondly, what I was saying was that if there is a contravention, either the contractor or the tree owner, or both, could be the guilty party.The contractor can contract out of this possible responsibility. An example of an unfair contract term would be to contract out of responsibility for the offence but not contract out of responsibility for making sure no offence was committed.

Sophora secundiflora has pretty shaggy bark?

I think you're right! Synonyms include Acer platanoides subsp. lobelii, hence the similarity to Norway Maple, and Acer cappadocicum subsp. lobelii Nice one. I must commit this one to memory, never seen one before but would like to recognise it if I ever do.

It's tricky, theclosest I got was Acer rubra variety rubra, but even within that species and variety the range of leaf form and entirety of margins seems to be very variable. Normally too one wold expect the petioles on rubra to be red, but they aren't always. The long points to the lobes are reminiscent of pennsylvanica, as is the pronounced 3 lobed form, but it's not clearly pennsylvanica,which I remember as being more ridged and with a finely serrate margin. I can eliminate lots of the Acer species easily enough, unfortunately when I do that there are none left!

I am pretty sure it's not a Norway Maple.

It's the law of contract. As long as the condition is not 'unfair' (Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977), it seems clear enough that parties can agree between themselves who tkaes repsonsibility for doing (and not doing) what. Mynors in the 2002 edition refers specifically to Regina [/i]v Bournemouth Justices ex parte Bournemouth Corporation for causing or permitting an offence to be just as culpable as doing the work. He goes on to surmise that the Accessories and Abettors Act could be used to direct the true blame back to the landowner. I'm afraid my edition is somewhat out of date, but then so is the government's legislation website and my attempt to see whether the government has specifically changed the law to include 'causing or permitting' is inconclusive. When the law was substantially revised by teh 2008 Planning Act, the opportunity was not taken. That would have put the matter beyond any doubt and removed the need to prove that the principle applies to TPO contraventions, and by extension to CA contraventions. In the meantime it seems to stand on case law. It seems to me a sound and sensible position. All the aforegoing supposes there is a contravention without a contract. If so, the tree contractor may be partly cuplable, with some possibility of arguing that he was merely doing and tha the true criminal act was the causing him to do. But with a contract all that changes. The tree owner cannot say that he did not know about the CA, he cannot say he was unaware tha the penalties were harsh and that he would be to blame, and he cannot say that he thiught the contractor had it covered. He would therefore clearly be 'causing'. Furthermore the contractor could demonstrate that he had no further duty to warn and had no duty at all to check as to the existence of immunity through the s211 notice process. I have had clients who would have been insulted if I had insisted on seeing notification, and who not only were willing to see such a clause in my terms of appointment but would have been worried if I hadn't been thorough enough to make sure there was one. People are grown-up enough to enter into plain contracts.Courts are slow to intervene in plain contracts as long as the cotract terms are not unfair. When they do have to intervene, they do so with public benefit in mind. What court would hold a contractor to blame for contravening a CA where such a contract existed and where the tree owner was so very very obviously and inexcusably to blame, otherwise known as 'at it'? None. This is how the law normally works. Thank goodness. But I'll stand corrected if there's some changes to the Planning Acts that I have missed perhaps buried in a Schedule to the 'Obscure and Cunningly Concealed Changes to the Planning Acts' Act 2015 that Jobe himself wouldn't have the patience to track down. Coffee break over, back to work...

It's possible to split BS3998 into 2 aspects, firstly the extent of reduction, this has been decided and must surely exceed the BS but it's been decided and presumably approved. Secondly the quality of work and standards of work practice, this can be done to BS no matter what the extent of reduction. It's till possible to do a good job of a bad idea. Personally if it was a visible tree (and if it's TPO'd it'd have to be) I'd rather not be seen doing it and getting the blame for someone else's bad idea no matter how well I did the work. Or hire an unmarked truck for the day and wear a mask!

Whatever others are telling you, this 'contract' would cover you. It's the Council's job to police these things, not you. If you make sure your contract says that there is a CA, you have made customer aware of it and the penalties for contravention and the requirements for notification, and that the customer has undertaken to make sure that the LPA has no objections, then you are covered.

I agree.

This seems to be going round in circles. You and others seem to be saying that 5837 and the classifications are subjective, yet there is some umbrage being taken that TOs are disageeing with said subjective judgements. If you and others are right that it is subjective, then disagreement is inevitable. By definition. But 5837 isn't subjective, it's meant to be objective but is susceptible to subjectivity. That's not the same thing as it being subjective. It is meant to give sufficiently defined parameters for classifications so that individual assessors even with their personal biases and leanings will reach about the same conclusions, and if they don't their conclusions will be of doubtful objective value. And anyone who tries to bend 5837 to support an existing development proposal may and probably will get busted eventually. 5837 is there to form a basis for protecting trees against construction etc. if that's what is desired. Occasionally it is used by designers and clients who recognise the benefits of trees within developments, even when no planning constraints arise. But mostly it is used as a tool by LPAs to save the benefits of trees from the pressures, greed and ignorance of designers and developers. In that circumstance, is anyone really surprised that opinions differ on the value of each tree? That's what planning appeals are there to resolve. Gradings or categorisations aren't absolute, they're relative. They can't be used as a yes/no. When you say "The whole point of the AIA is to inform the designer which trees to protect and which can be felled" all I can say is that's not the point of AIAs at all. It is to be able to demonstrate, generally after selection of retention has been done, how the trees would affect development and how development would affect the trees. Basically an AIA without a specific development proposal is largely futile, but 5837 provides for an assessment of relative retention desirablity regardless of any specific development proposal. "But surely our role as arb consultants is to make informed decisions easier for non arbs."? I guess your TO is not a non arb, and in this case is, in effect, the decision maker.

Having not seen the tree or the context, I don't know how any of us can say the TO is right or wrong on this 'lovely tree'.

Long before the AIA and the TCP are contemplated, the grading is undertaken. The retention desirability of the trees is ranked. Basically saying the As are more desirable than the Bs which are more desirable than the Cs. On that basis, the TO may just be moving a few trees up to a higher rank. That's his/her prerogative. If he/she is effectively shifting all or most of your grading up a level, well again that's his/her prerogative. In most senses this makes less difference than moving a few trees up, because it doesn't differentiate between trees. None of this changes the pass-mark issue. I.e. there is no pass mark. It's the Council's call. And then your client's call to appeal against a refusal or whaat it considers unreasonable tree protection or retention conditions. I don't recall the word 'unremarkable' in 5837. That would be a highly subjective definition. Doesn't it talk instead about value and quality, life expectancy and freedom from defects? And doesn't the Planning Act talk instead about amenity and expediency? The Council has the public's interests (including the eventual occupiers of a development) in mind whilst the developer has the developer's interests in mind, and the latter only retains trees if they will increase profits. It is a miracle that the two ever come vaguely into the same categories of retention desirability. If you grade an unremarkable (all be it healthy) leyland cypress as anything less than B1 then how will the Council understand that an objective view is being taken on the ranking on which it can base its decision?