daltontrees

It looks like Prunus padus to me. The two distinctive things for ID would be base of leaf shape and the two cherry glands on the leaf stalk, both covered in the pic. I believe all the Prunus padus subgenus are fairly high in cyanide, with a history of poisoning browsing animals.

Inspection certainly required. Any grounds for differentiating between P. squamosus prognoses on Acer and Fagus?

It most certainly is a Cherry. I don't see any graft. If you get the foliage lower, why bother with deadwood removal, won't it be invisible? You may just open up the tree to infection unnecessarily.

I have done something like this before, but what I did was give a voucher for £250 worth of tree and shrub work, the winner gets you out to quote for work, you agree a price and only then do they let you know that they have the voucher. That way it's genuine. And you can know beforehand the total cost to your company. And it can be gift-aided and tax-deductible. And your concern about local tree company winning is covered. And bidders know the face value of voucher, setting a tone for bids or for fixing the charity value of the voucher at say £100.

As before, I would be obliged if you would let us know the outcome. I am quite irrationally getting annoyed at your Council's attitude, maybe though they just need it put to them very plainly, I wouldn't have the appetiete for a long game.

I will have to go and look again at P v Northhampton. But the law can sometimes be an ass. I think you have to stand back from these things sometimes and see the situation for what it is. To quote myself " The neighbour still is at danger, his visitors are still at danger and his property is still getting damaged. The law cannot possibly be construed to prevent him doing whatever he needs to do about it, just because a tree has outgrown its usefulness."

Agree, it's probably P. squamosus which is pretty slow-moving and unlikely to cause failure in isolation.

I tried to edit my previous messsage but it failed. I was just going to clarify my last comment. The neighbour could remove roots, creating a dangerous tree, the owner could then remove it. In my reading of the legislation being permitted without consent. The apllication anticipated this and (sensibly and I think reasonaby) proposed pre-empting it by removing the whole tree.

Here is the exact wordign of the 1990 Act, with all the extraneous wording removed "no [TPO] shall apply ... to the cutting down, uprooting, topping or lopping of any trees so far as may be necessary for the prevention or abatement of a nuisance." It doesn't say 'actionable nuisance', but I suppose that is implied. I am not in favour of unnecessary tree removals, and as you say a short-term fix may be possible for damage that we don't know the extent of, but it's only going to get worse. I am not aware of any significant driveway cases, but the generality of what constitutes nuisance is so well established that if it were my tree I wouldn't have to look any further. I think the OLA duty could be satisfied by a partial repair but the damage and the danger to the neighbour are nothing to do with OLA and there is no direct comparison with the neighbour's need to be reasonable in considering whether he wants to tolerate damage and danger to himself. Following the process seems to have got the owner nowhere. The neighbour still is at danger, his visitors are still at danger and his property is still getting damaged. The law cannot possibly be construed to prevent him doing whatever he needs to do about it, just because a tree has outgrown its usefulness. I would love to see how an appeal would pan out.

Good! Thanks for clarifying.

I'm with you on most of that but the neighbour's position is surely affected not just by the OLA duty of care but by his own safe enjoyment of his property, e.g. not twisting his own ankle, and also by the damage being done to his property which is not of his doing? Whereas there may be a defence in the OLA that the obligation to abateme trip hazards are modified by the reasonableness inherent in the OLA duty of care, there is no such reasonableness test that I know of in the other two cases namely danger to himself and damage to his property. The TPO might only show the tree position above ground, but it is the tree that is preserved including the roots wherever they might be. The neighbour is affected by the TPO even though it's not his tree. I still feel the Council's refusal is technically correct but that the neighbour has an immunity from prosecution (for removing tree roots) that is clearly stated in primary legislation. I can't see that he has to find a more elaborate and expensive solution because of the TPO. Even if the TPO is pre 1999 and is for a tree of outstanding amenity value and justifying an Article 5 Certificate, the immunity from prosecution is unchanged. So if he removes roots and tells the owner thst the tree is probably dangerous as a result, he is still within his rights. And if the owner is satisfied that the tree is indeed dangerous, he is within his rights to notify the Council and then remove it. No permissions are required for root removal or tree removal, no?

I am not surprised at the Council's decision but I am incredulous at the rationale. As you say, the Council has taken it upon itself to try and control how the nuisance can be abated. Which is for want of a better or any other appropriatte word, wrong. There may be one technicality here. You applied for removal based on intended root pruning making the tree dangerous. Instead, if the neighbour had pruned the roots to abate the nuisance, he would have been immune from prosecution because thats what the Act says. Then the tree could have been so dangerous that it's immediate removal was required, and again the owner would be immune from prosecution (because, again, that's what the Act says). But because you applied for consent for the whole solution, a refusal might be technically competent but not for the reasons stated by the Council. Good luck with this. You could get the neigbour to prune the roots then chop the dangerous tree down (giving Council 5 days' notice). Or appeal against the refusal. Or persuade the neighbour to spend money on resurfacing... maybe not.

Tut tut, where has your razor-sharp IDing gone? It is not ilex. Here is another photo. You obviously still need the practice.

I don't think there is a P&D list for the PTI assessment. It's open-book except for the fungal ID part. Anyone with a good memory could pass the written assessment without knowing anything much about trees but will get a serious fright when then going out unaccompanied to survey trees, either during the practical assessment or afterwards.

No. 13 is right, but you have to be a bit more specific on no. 14.

Although I still think the early signs of N. coccinea or at least Cryptococcus fagisuga are there, it is more likely to be something that has caused bark separation or killing over a whole patch of stem. Is that wee thing at the garage door a carved mushroom, is it carved from a stump? Was there another tree there until recently? Has its removal exposed the stem to scorch? Shadows show that the damage is on the sunny side. I agree with others that the installation of teh gravel will have done some damage, it is a matter of degree depending on what and how mouch cover was scraped off, what was put back and whether it was compacted.

Exemplary! Boring the hinge centre out is in my experience pretty much essential on a back-leaner, you have to put some force into pulling it over against the lean, a wide hinge is useful and the extra wood is just a hinderance to that.

It might be worth considering the possibility of Nectria coccinea. I will feel like such an idiot if it's not a Beech, but it has that lined and furrowed and white-streaked look on the bark of what otherwise should be a smooth barked tree.

There are almost 1/2 million species of beetle! The metallic green ones seem to be lumped together in the common name 'Chafer' but aren't necessarily closely related. The Green Chafer or Japanese Scarab Anomala albopilosa is pretty big, maybe look that one up.

Super, better than TV.

I did. 3 or 4 minutes a tree? Surely not possible to give client proper advice based on such a brief inspection. I am doing well if I can survey, record, risk assess and instruct interventions for 80 a day. My record is 200 in 8 hours but they were samey poplars. Anyway, it's all getting a bit off-topic. Interesting though.

Both are relevant to a survey, the first is Stage 3 of a VTA and the second determines target presence.

Eh? Didn't you read my advice to the OP? To recap, it was to see it through by getting expert opinion after a proper inspection, weigh up the odds and advise the client so that an informed decision can be made. And I agree that the advice on what the options are could include a well-informed means of doing something other than removing.

I have sympathy for the presumption of retention, but it's the client's call and the advice should be objective even if it does include the possibilities for safe retention.

I slightly disagree, I think the real skill is one step further on - enabling a client to make an informed decision. I have advised cleits int eh past that the tree is, for want of another way of putting it here, probably OK and they then ask for it to be taken down anyway because they are risk averse, and other clients I have advised that a tree is pretty dangerous and has no future and they have asked for it to be retained albeit with a bit of reduction or bracing. It's their tree, if you are a tree surgeon not being paid for advice, the client might be willing to take your advice to fell at face value and you get the paid work. That's a different skill entirely (salesmanship) from objective advice. I think talking them into expensive risk mitigation work is the same. There's no such thing as right or wrong (black or white) for trees, it is always always a matter of what is right for that client at that time for that tree at that stage of its life.