daltontrees

Update: I have just discovered ther is such a thing (to add to my primitive list of gill attachment types) as "seceding" which is "Gills appear torn away or hanging, but where attached at some point in time. Evidence of the attachment may remain on the stipe, usually occurs in older specimens." Since the specimens appear in most ways to look like or be in the habitat of sulphur tuft, this may be an indication tha they are sulphur tuft and that the gills have been adnexed but have come detached and/or are easily detached when the cap is torn off.

I'm just going by what I have read. 2 books and 2 reliable websites. All saying adnate.

I wondered about that but the one on the right in the lower picture shows free gills even though the top has not been pulled off.

Looks like sulphur tuft but the gills are 'free', for sulphur tuft they should be 'adnate'. I haven't got any better suggestion, though.

I'm waterproof. Holidays are for losers. My economy's not struggling.😇

Council contract bashing? I work for just about every volume house builder in the UK. Forestry Commission, WIldlife Trust, Crown Estates, about 15 Housing Associations, About 15 Councils at the last count. I am instructed by solicitors, architects, planning consultants, project managers and a fee others I'm not allowed to name. NONE of this work would happen if I didn't have insurance. The premiums are about 1/2% of my turnover. You stick to your niche and I'll stick to mine.

Touchee!

I don't agree, contract terms are unfair if the customer cannot know the risks beforehand. The sort of thing you are trying to contract out of, you don't need to because they are contributory negligence by the customer, because they should know. A waiver for you breakign tehir house in two, though? If anyone in any walk of life, any tradesman, any professional asked me to sign something to say that they might kill me and if they do my estate can't sue them can go and get stuffed. What sort of signals does that send out about caring about doing things right? I woudl NOT use a contractor that had no insurance. I would not recommend anyone that didn't and I would not appoint (as a consultant) anyone that didn't. Insurance mught be a bit of a con sometimes but it is generally a necessary evil and I just can't imagine anyone wanting to position their business as not needing it. If you don't claim, your premia are low and it's a trivial part of annual outgoings. Tender for any public or quasi-public or corporate work and you won't get past the shortlisting stage without insurance. Each to their own.

Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977

Well probably. By law a planning authority can refer an application to FC to advise as if it were a Felling License application and FC can also refer a FL application to planning to treat as a planning application. In a rare example of joined up legislation the system can do this depending on which agenda is more important. And equally a FL precludes the need for PP and vice versa. So if I was a bod at FC getting a PP application sent to me for comment I'd want a tree survey that allows me to know what I'm indirectly licensing. And vice versa. Both parties should be concerned with only allowing exemption for the tree removals that are necessary to give effect to the planning or forestry objectives. Never an excuse to raze the lot to the ground just because there's a license or permission for the site. Worth noting too that FC (or in my experience Scottish Forestry) will have a strong say in whether onsite or offsite compensatory planting is required, much as if it were conditioning a License with a restocking requirement.

There are several exemption types. I onle mentione dthe plannign situation. The FC guidance (downloadable) should keep you right.

Yes. The planning exemption is only when there is detailed planning permission AND the trees have to be removed to implement the permission (not necessarily all tree on the site) AND removal is immediately required (you can't just clear the trees unless you're about to start development).

unless you give a location, no-one can start to answer the question.

There you have it, the Analomometer.

I don't think it's about the nanny state, the question might be - if you sent an employee or a subby up in strong winds and they got hurt, would the HSE do you? Would your insurers drop you in it? I've climbed in winds where I could barely hold on. Whole different game if you're on spikes. Some branch walks just wouldn't be possible in even moderate winds, with swaying stems above you jerking your ropes and the branch bouncing beneath you and the wind knocking you off balance and the extra weight of you on the branch increasing the chance of it giving way und er you. I think it all comes down to doing a site specific, day-specific risk assessment that weighs up the type of operation with the weather conditions. There can't possibly be one maximum wind speed and one 'working at height'. I've never seen a speed published, and I'd be surprised if one has been that covers all.

I paid £315 last month for one night in Islay, there was literally nothing else. And that was a last minute deal discounted down from £390! I mean, it was good but there was a fire alarm at 3am, all of us out on the street, couldn't get back to sleep afterwards. I felt burst at breakfast time. Travelodge doesn't use Booking.com. Premier used to but haven't recently. Unfortunately the great prices if you book way ahead aren't available to me when I as usual have to turn a job around in 2 weeks. The options in rural Scotland can be slim, the next nearest available place at a decent price can be 20 miles away. Not too bad but I like a super early start. Especially in winter when there's short daylight hours.

I do a lot of survey all over the place, I probably stay over about twice a month. Hotels and the like have got really really expensive compared to a few years ago. I thought about camper van, but to be honest when I finish work and I am wet and dirty and tired I need a shower and a good night's sleep in a decent bed, and ideally the option of a hearty breakfast. Can't cope with the thought of snorers, nowhere to hang up wet gear and trying to make dinner or breakfast on a daft wee gas hob. Not frequently anyway. I usually gamble on getting a last last minute hotel, with the fallback option of kipping in the estate car.

Fair play to you. But I don't see what my self-contradiction is. TPOs are an imposition on private property rights that should only be used for overriding public benefits. I don't see why the public shouldn't pay for the adminsitration of the controls wher eonwers are jsut wantign to do ordinary things with their trees. This is child's play compared to the moral repugnance and (in my opinion) illegality of extorting huge CAVAT payments from people who want to remove their own trees. In a previous career I did a lot of Compulsory Purchase and conmpensation work. This also makes TPOs look trivial. It was a fair system of compensation, but few owners coud get their heads around having their property taken from them. Literally kicking and screaming in some cases. Remaining objective is essential while trying to bring others along towards improvements by sound reasonable and rational argument. Nothing wrong with that.

This is a small part of what I do for work, and an even smaller part of what I do in life. Beyond using opportunities that arise to change or influence things for the better, I do not let it trouble me. Who's to say I'm right anyway. We live in an imperfect democracy. Nearly none of us get to pick and choose the bits of our lives or work that we want to leave because we don't believe in them 100%. Presumably you're just trying to wind me up. But in summary, this is life. There's no harmless jobs.

I'm not sure that speculative applications are a significant issue, afer all it could take a couple of months before a decision is made (and much longer if it's a refusal based on excessive works), which doesn't allow the underlying problem to get resolved. It's not happened to me so far but in theory I could get 3 applications at once, each for a different % reduction. I'd rather refuse one and approve the other two than have to go back to the applicant and recommend that another application be put in for a lesser % than a single application for the highest %. The position at law as I see it is that a LPA cannot approve something that it hasn't had an application for. E.g application comes in for 40% reduction, LPA cannot approve 20% so it has to refuse and invite new application. Within reason the case officer can allow the applicant to vary the % while keeping the application alive, but it can get messy. A significant audience can build up in curtain-twitching-land, so the rules can't be bent too far even with the best intentions.

It's the only system we have, and it's not sh*t. And I'm paid to do it. Getting people out of bed since the invention of money.

Damn I just typed a long reply then lost it. Pre app advice is money well spent, it helps developers make money off developments by smoothing the way. It's mostly a list of relevant national and local policies and how they affect the site. Specific observations only arise from draft layouts. 'Minded to recommend approval' is sometimes the flip side of 'would lose on appeal if I didn't approve it'. Contrast with Mrs Miggins just wanting to know how much she is allowed to take off her own oak tree. TPO applications are rarely so profit driven that there can be a realistic expectation of an applicant paying for advice. It is implicit in there being a TPO that the tree was at least once considered important for the amenity of the area. The application decision is in the nebulous realms of whether the TPO is still relevant, whether the owner must be forced to live in the misery of the tree's shade, whether an oak will withstand a 20% reduction etc. So, it's the same but totally different. A developer can buy a site and choose to pursue development. A tree owner just wakes up one day to find her tree has been commandeered by the public, without payment of compensation. Making her pay to understand that is (to my mind) immoral.

I haven't really thought it through, but doesn't it create a conflict of interest for a LPA to create a client/consultnat relationship (by charging for advice), then determine applications based on statutory obligations and then potentially have applicants appeal against refusals? It all seems a bit murky and compromised. And mean. To be a bit clearer, applicant would pay TO to write an acceptable application that the TO would recommend for approval. Doesn't that sound fundamentally wrong? Is it just me?

Personally I think it's immoral to charge. TPO is a huge imposition on a tree owner, and quite rightly TPO applications are free. Pre-application advice from a Council can save it lots of admin dealing with half-baked applications. The LPA I work for doesn't charge. I usually end up spending a fair bit of time getting the applicant to modify the application to make it competent, and then acceptable. Does applicant benefit from this? Not really, and it's fundamentally wrong to expect them to pay for advice that mainly suits the public. Cheapskate Britain generally fixes the resources available and then provides only as much of a service as it can afford, knowing that in most cases it won't be able to do things properly. Wouldn't it be nice to live in a society where our laws, policies and values are used as a basis for setting adequate resources?

You have some well established white or soft rot there. Possibly Armillaria. The orange stuff is not significant. Original cause of damage can't be known, but I would guess at rabbits gnawing the bark, maybe worsened by strimming. If so that has opened up wood to infection. Bad news is that it wouild take a miracle fo the tree to fight it off, especially if recently pruned. Good news is that apple trees can be pretty tough and, despite cavities or decay, it might soldier on for a decade or so before there is risk of collapse. Good that you gor rid of the grass, but you should mulch, mulch, mulch, the single greatest kindness you can do a tree.