daltontrees

I have said all that needs to be said.

I know you guys and gals like a challenge. Attached are 4 photos from the topside and underside of leaflets of 2 species of trees collected from a reliable garden a few months ago. A bit dried out now but the shapes are as they were. See if you can get both species, they are from the same Order but not the same family, but both are native to China. The shorter one is 3 inches, the longer 6 inches. Both have indications of their oriental origin in their names.

Thank you for indulging me, this has been helpful and better than trying to resolve things in the heat of battle. So.... Q1. I wasn't aware of s72(1), I thought the authors of the Guidance had just plucked the wording from the air. Pount made, and taken. Trees are not protected by CAs, there is merely a precautionary approach against their removal; their protection still has to be proven and formalised by a TPO when their removal is proposed. I can reveal that my trouble with this has been all along the older CAs where ther is no CA appraisal. Q2. Noted, but it will always be a grey area as to how many residents make a public. Or whether all members of this 'sub-public' are equal regardless of wealth and party affiliations. It helps to hear someone else resigned to it being vague, like the rest of the planning system. Good luck to Lord Taylor of Goss Moor whoever he is, I agree with the sentiments but when the Government can't even keep the legislation.gov.uk up to date, he might be advised to throw another few quangos on the fire to keep himself warm while awaiting the streamlining of Guidance. It isn't clear whether he plans a crown clean or a crown reduction, but current political sentiment suggests the latter. Good luck to him, it won't be easy!

Zero pruning on the third tree. Linn Park Glasgow, 20m from the stables. Will try and get back there in a couple of months.

You might pick up some extra ideas from the RHS site Conifers: brown patches / Royal Horticultural Society

The Scottish difference is that through legislation in 2006 it became possible for Planning Authorities to make TPOS if trees are of 'historic or cultural' significance. This aligns the justification almost exactly with the 'architectural or historic' grounds for a CA. Down south you have no such sophistication of your principal Act.

Q1. The difference arises from the justification for a CA and the justification for a TPO coming from 2 separate Acts with 2 separate wordings. One is architectural and historic interest, the other is amenity interest. There's not a word in common between the definitions. The guidance takes them further apart, the definition of amenity which (probably wisely) was omitted from the Act is shaped by measuring amenity through whether it would be missed if it was gone. The LA cannot lawfully use conservation area justifications for a TPO, even if the existence of trees was part of its thinking (rightly or wrongly) when the CA was made. Q2. The guidance says "The trees, or at least part of them, should therefore normally be visible from a public place, such as a road or footpath". The residents may well be members of the public, but not according to the guidance. A few of them see the CA from the inside for long periods, many of the public see the CA from the outside for short periods.

The most recent Government Guidelines say this about the grounds for making a TPO - "The Act does not define 'amenity', nor does it prescribe the circumstances in which it is in the interests of amenity to make a TPO. In the Secretary of State's view, TPOs should be used to protect selected trees and woodlands if their removal would have a significant impact on the local environment and its enjoyment by the public. LPAs should be able to show that a reasonable degree of public benefit would accrue before TPOs are made or confirmed. The trees, or at least part of them, should therefore normally be visible from a public place, such as a road or footpath, although, exceptionally, the inclusion of other trees may be justified." In the section about Conservation Areas, the Guidelines say that if a TPO is being considered as a response to a Conservation Area notice - "Special attention must be paid to the desirability of preserving the character or appearance of the conservation area." The first question is, if all the trees in a CA are provisionally protected by the CA status, what co-incidence (if any) is there between them contributing to the character or appearance of the conservation area and their preservation for the local environment and its enjoyment by the public. To put it in a practical way, are trees that get in the way of the public's view of architecture or history not a detraction from a Conservation Area? For all that they are provisionally protected, once a TPO is proposed the test switches from the CA definition of special historic or architectural interest to the TPO definition of amenity interest. The second question is, if a tree in a CA cannot be seen from any public space but can be seen and enjoyed by the other residents in the context that the original architects of the area had intended, is the SoS's guidance the correct interpretation of the Acts or should TPOs also be exerciseable to protect trees against loss of amenity for the residents of the area? I have a particular case reason for asking these questions but I would be more interested in peoples' views on the more general principles. Sorry if it's a bit heavy but I have I hope distilled it down to the bare minimum. Final point, the law in Scotland is different in a way that might make the first question unnecessary. If anyone wants to know why, please ask.

That's what I was thinking.

I see the cited case (the Railtrack one, not the Margate Pier one) related to public nuisance. The Council must have been claiming as public health authority or some other statutory position. I don't think it has applicability to your squirrels. There is the similarity that no-one in either case was responsible for the presence of vermin in the area. Proofing the bridge might make the pigeons go elsewhere. but they could still sh*t on passers-by. So in your case, which will definitely prevent the neighbour having squirrels in the attic (a) blocking the entry points or (b) pruning the tree? We might never know, but if the neighbour is ever ill-advised and rich enough to take this to court I would love to hear the outcome, if not be there to hear his argument fall apart as he spouted it forth.

Sorry, I meant to say it wasn't clear from your last post what happened in the Margate Pier case. I shall now go and read it, I didn't see the link to it and read only the bit you quoted.

I expect Mynors will have little if anything specific to say about this situation. I think that it is a question of whether there is a nuisance and not what action should be taken to remove the nuisance. Incidentally, I have removed branches from a yew in a Conservation Area with the Council's consent, specifically to take away a jumping-off point for squirrels that were taking up residence in an attic. As you probably already know 'Nuisance' in the legal sense has a different (or rather, a narrower) meaning than it does in common usage. In common usage the nuisance here is the squirrels, not the tree. Squirrels are well able to scale fairly smooth brickwork and to live (as a friend of mine found) in the attic of 4 storey buildings with no contiguous trees, if food sources, lack of suitable natural shelters and population pressures make it so. All the tree is doing here (based on what limited info you have given) is making it possible for the squirrels to get to the building from that tree. If the tree were not there they may be able to get to the building across the surface or from another tree. It is I suppose safest to use this tree, but there is probably no way of proving that the squirrels would not be there if the tree was not. Asking your client to damage an otherwise harmless tree is I personally think too high a price to pay (financially and in tree health) for such an experiment. The exclusion of the squirrels from the building by blocking entry points will however be entirely conclusive and foreseeably successful. In conclusion I think the controllable deficiency is that the building is not secure and that the onus and expense should be with its owner. I don't think that there is an actionable nuisance in the legal sense. Just my opinion but surely anyone reasonable looking at the sutuation from the outside (a court for example) would favour your client's position?

Excuse for once the lack of eloquence, the weather here is ****! No snow, though, just rain and wind and cold.

I think I know what that fellament.

Four, you forgot about the guy that does the risk assessment.

Coming from an unforgiving legalistic background where mistakes are weized upon with glee, I have found over the years that whilst there is nothing wrong with making assumptions they should be stated and an opinion offered based on the assumptions being valid; in other words if they are not valid all bets are off. And so are the wolves. Me, I'm assuming all the trees were brought in to an otherwise clean site and that any Armillaria is isolated to the oaks as a result because it was brought in with all of them but not with the other species. Surmising rather than assuming. Anyway my hunch is phytophthora and I have nothing to base that upon except the pictures, some limited experience of it on a few trees and a bad bad feeling. Hope I'm wrong. If it's Armillaria it should be easy to confirm up-close.

Spaniel comes from Espagnol meaning spanish, so something spanish could be good, like Arbol meaning tree. Lenador (pronounced Len.ya.dor) for lumberjack is a bit much to shout.

Just for avoidance of any doubt, the last of my pictures, with the 'white stuff' is the only one of the three trees that did not have any noticeable canker. The fungus I might have described as resupinate but it was in reality spread like a sheet of tissue over the moss at the base of the tree and could probably have been pulled off intact. It was very thin and quite firm, porous surface, more yellow on the back. The dark area in trhe last picture at the bottom is where I scraped moss away and a little piece of the fungus, The bark was saturated and degraded but I investigated no further as there was no risk to passers by and the tree can be left to die entirely.

C. macrophylla and C. Bracypoda seem to be synonymous according to some authorities. Good, shot, by the way.

I was out on survey the other day and I came across three yews with what I thought was this black stuff that you are discussing. here are the pictures. On both the living trees the black stuff was spongy and afrter a hasty inspection I concluded that it was in reality a large build-up of dried exudate, in one case from within an included fork and in the othe case from an inexplicable wound or a very well developed canker. The substance is crumbly and smells a little like the exudate from P. syringae only not as strong and perhaps a little ammonic. Study the pictures if you like. I had no facility with me to take a specimen home but I can go back and get some if anyone's interested. The third yew had a thin fungal body at the base and was completely dead from 2m to the top at 7m, despite fairly vigorous growth at the bottom.

My first thought is Cornelian Cherry, which I think is Cornus mas

I'd like to see that, thanks. Your comments about pruning are noted, I will decide in early March what to do, the frosty weather is causing a few leaves to fall off and I will hold off for a while.

I bet those FC folk are worried about the dreaded P word. One look at those black lesions and it immediately comes to mind then is dismissed in favour of a less alarming diagnosis.

Well, Eucryphia x nymanensis 'Nymansay' it is. They can be dreadfully multistemmed, all over the place really. I saw a particulary ugly one at Benmore Botanics last year. However, there is one near my mum's house at Helensburgh that is a spectacular tree of at least 15 metres, I mean to go back and speak to the owner to see if they or previous owner trained it that way. My specimen is only a few feet tall and I have to make some difficult training decisions soon because it is getting multi stemmed which is fine if I want a shrub but not if I want a tree.

Found a picture of the bark