daltontrees

That said I would always use a cinched sling. It seems unwise to be left in a situation where you can't unclip or untie the rope to add extra length. The alpine butterfly is a good idea too.

A timber hitch cinches better around a stem (when pulled form above) than a running bowline does. Add a stopper knot to it and there's no way it will work loose.

That's a fallacious argument. Say you had an accident and you hadn't obeyed the Highway Code (which is not law). Your insurer could quite rightly decline to pay out because you could have and should have done something better and safer but didn't, and the accident was the result of that choice or omission.

Yell is dire. I left them a few years ago because the service was atrocious and many mistakes) but they still harangue me, making out as if my listing is still live and just needs upgraded for free, so generous of them. I used to have my website through Moonfruit, which then had to chuck it in because it relied on a program called Flash. Yell bought up all the licenses and said it would transfer the website content to Wix for free. Then it said no editing would be allowed for 4 months. Then it lost my website, deleted it completely. I only found out because a potential client called me, said he got my numebr off someone but couldn't find my website to check me out. Website had been gone for nearly 2 months! Who knows how much business I lost? So I paid someone local to do me and host me a new website. Then Yell started pestering me for website hosting fees. Then appointed a debt collection agency to pursue me and threated court action. 20 letters I got. I think they have finally given up. Total amateurs. Can I coin a new word for the english language? "Cuntrustworthy".

2 things. The Access to Neighbouring Land Act only applies to England & Wales. Court will only grant access if (among other things) it is satisfied "that they cannot be carried out, or would be substantially more difficult to carry out, without entry" to the neighbour's land. In theory if an accident happened or damage was done that could have been avoided by obtaining a court order for access, there might be repercussions. Either way, don't delay.

That's not true. Given time I could possibly explain quantum mechanics or relativity, but it would be impossible to do it simply and to do it justice at the same time. Sometimes the explanation is that it's complicated and that there isn't a simple explanation. Have I made myself clear? Your statement is therefore patently untrue, although trying for a simple explanation is usually worthwhile if trying to reach a wider audience, knowing that you will bore or provoke those who want a deeper understanding or who itch to dig you up for your sweeping generalisations. Or oversimplification, as it's known. Internet fora thrive on it. Someone will be reaching right now for the keyboard to point out that 'fora' as a plural of 'forum' is antiquate and is discriminating against those who did not study latin. The appeal to ignorance is the stalwart of the keyboard warrior. So very f****** tiresome. I don't think the Plain English campaign would like the use of 'thus avoiding Pierrepoint', by the way. DOes it have any relevance to whether AA Approved status is good or bad?

Fab resource, thanks.

ooft, that's a loty of Kd for a top-heavy walnut. Electricity substation in the background. Walnut seems to carry on for ages when there's not a lot left but Kd takes no prisoners. Is that more Kd at the right just beside the clipboard behind the ivy? Looks about ready to snap... If you reduce it so much that there are no targets left but grass, could keep to the bitter end, which with that much crown removed won't be to long. OR remove completely, salvage as much wood as possible and replant. Good thing about Walnut's aggressive allelopathy is that it clears the whole area of competing vegetation, but if you remove and replant you might want to leave a season until the juglone in the soil breaks down. Otherwise it could impede establishment of new planting. I have no evidence base for that except that Walnut really is fabulous at excluding everything else around it.

PT Mapper.

I used QCAD (not for surveys but general CAD work and fiel conversion), moved to LibreCAD which I found to be pretty poor, so went back to QCAD. About 30 euros I recall. Great wee programme but a tad slow somtimes and spits the dummy at 50Mb, sometimes less than that.

It's a fight you can't win. Every Laburnum htat I have attended that has been ill has had this orange bark. Which means the bark is dead. There's a long list of possible culprits, notably Phytophthora. So it could be manifestation of root rot. Or in your case it could be bark death caused by compression of wood against bark at those ugly looking forks. Looks like a mature tree, at a goodly age for a Laburnum. They only last a few decades. They're rarely a risk even when they are jsut about dead, so I'd say don't prune of fstuff until completely dead and de-barked. Soil drainage might be the main issue. Give it good hard shoogle, if it moves then I suspect root rot.

Quitre right, I thought I had said that. 10kN=1 tonne.

Someone was fined £150k a couple of years ago for one TPO'd tree removed illegally. The systems are only as good as the resourcing that's put in to enforcing them.

The answer is yes, but use a screwgate krab and just check that it isn't cross-loaded. This assumes both ropes have a spliced eye. In this configuration everything is being used exactly as designed and the strength limit is that of the weakest component. 3kN ropes and krabs (i.e 3 tonnes) are standard and you'd need to eat a lot of pies before you would be worrying about strength limits.

A novel concept, the 'revenge TPO'.

Not really grey, the legislation is completely clear. As the Stones sang "You can't always get what you want". Now I've got that song stuck in my head for the rest of the day...

If you make a CA notification, the Council can only prevent felling by making a TPO. It can state that it will make a TPO unless the notification is withdrawn, as a way of negotiating a re-notification for a lesser extent of works. It can say if it thinnks tha the notice is invalid (if the works haven't been clearly specified, or the plan is inadequate). But it can't object on principle and then use that as a way of preventing the works.

Not enough info. The felling before discharging pre-commencement conditions could be a breach of Conservation Area controls AND a breach of Felling License rules. It is logicaly not possible to claim that carrying out works to implement a consent, while not having authority to commence development yet, is commencement of development. Don't need to be a fancy lawyer to work that one out. The question is whether the permission would not have been granted had it not been for the specific care home use. That could be complicated, but care homes don't come under housing land supply so the rationale for housing development could be substantially harder to prove i.e. shouln't assume housing will be permitted. It comes down to this. Were the approved tree losses only acceptable because of the specific social and other benefits of the care home?

What plants have to avoid is freezing of water within cells. This is extremely damaging. Depending on species, they may try to avoid low temperatures by staying warm. Aspen, for example, still metabolises internally at less than -10C. If that's not enough, they avoid freezing by antifeeze compounds (carbohydrates, sugars, alcohols, salts) in the cells and sap. This works down to -10C. In the reall tough plants, the cells hold only pure water, which can supercool without freezing down to -40C. In the really really tough plants anything outside the cells can freeze but the cell walls are tough enough to withstand the pressure of ice growth around them. This has been documented down to -200C.

I meant to say 'better at NOT paying it out". Post now edited to that effect. They're really expert at not paying out.

Nothing wromg with being blunt. But does 'in your view' mean that's your interpretation of the law or that's morally the right thing to do? It seems in this case the insurers have a different 'view'. My understanding of the law is that the tree owner is only liable if the failure and damage was foreseeable. My view on the morality is that insurers are really good at taking money and even better at [edit] NOT paying it out and presumably know the law and the details of the insurance policy, and arguing with them could be futile. I see you have one foot on the 'client' landmine. A client is someone thats pays you for advice and is entitled to rely on it as being professionally sound, and can sue you if it's wrong. A customer is someone that pays for work to be done. Call a customer a client and you are holding yourself out as an adviser, with all the liability that follows.

Sounds an awkward situation, but perhaps legally correct if the relevant insurance policies say so. Clearly the worst scenario is to have to remove the tree in the owner's proerty but not to have authority, access or a contract for payment to remove the bit in the neighbour's part first. So the thing to do probably is offer the tree owner to remove it all subject to the neighbour's permission for access. This should include an apportionment for insurance purposes (but not comprising separate quotes). The owner should then offer to pay it all to you knowing he will only get part of it back from his insurers or get part of it back from the neighbour (this havign been agreed in advance) who in turn knows he will get part of it back from his insurers. Acting as a broker between the parties is too much to ask of a tree work contractor. Offer for all to one customer, give an apportionment that the parties can use. I don't see the need for specific caveats about further damage to an office, just use reasonable care. And don't call him a client, 'customer' is the approriate term that avoids expectations of professional advice.

I often had the feeling that what was particularly good for TOs (and there were a disproportionately high number on UKTC, no doubt still are) was that it was all email based and one could get a few interesting emails a day to the inbox without incurring the wrath of Council IT overlords by going onto internet forums.

Ahh, WT, bless him. Endless questions and no sense that he was doing anything with the responses other than killing time. If he ever writes a book it will be colossal.

Based on Ben Edmonds' email, I stand corrected, it is still on the go but only visible to its members. That's something, anyway.