daltontrees

I get it Albedo, I think. P Trees fall over. Q It's a tree, so it is going to fall over. Yes HCR, I should have said vitality. Old habits fie hard, I always have a look to see whether twig extension this year is more or less than last year or less than noirmal for species. But I have never concluded anything from it that couldn't be worked out from unseasonal weather or some obvious defect like Armillaria. Thanks for the correction though, accuracy beats precision every the time.

That's the abridged version of the full-size NTSG doc, which is a dull dull 90 pages or so. Wisely said to me once that to know what a dodgy tree looks like you need to know what a normal one looks like. Doing lots of tree surveys gives you a chance to do that. But the most useful thing I find is to spend time looking at recent failures (before the deadwood fungi get stuck) in and to get to know for example how much included bark causes failure of compression forks, what extent of fungal hollowing precedes stem failure, how the amount of k. deusta at the surface relates to the extent of decay inside, what abnormalities of bark correspond with what kinds of failures. When you see it again on a standing tree the right alarm bells ring. I have had a look at the QTRA website now, it looks like a system that might have been cutting edge (in terms of risk assessment) once but I can't see many people taking it up for money now. If nothing else NTSG seems to have demystified the whole thing. In a dull dull way.

Ahh, oslac, just when I was going to say I concur with you and tha tthat was a comfortable juncture for patting myself on the back for not wasting a license fee for QTRA, I realised there is a serious message in this somewhere. I hate to drag in the National Tree Safety Group stuff, but NTSG does rather fancy itself as having arriveds at the definitive guidance on the matter and goes as far as to say it hopes its findings are adopted in the courts. Anyway the distinction needs to be made between the landowner, the inspector and the assessor of risk. NTSG suggests the landnowner should identify which trees, which if the fell, would harm someone. An inspection by a bod who need only have a working knowledge of trees (not necessarily and arboriculturalist) should follow and if defects are noted the risk should be quantified by an arboriculturalist and then mitigating action taken where appropriate. 3 separate acts by 3 different classes of people there. Agreed the assessor of risk should have 'appropriate knowledge and expeerience' (to quote NTSG). Teh contract I am working on requires someone like me to do all 3. With the fallback of referral of unusual cases to experts, a call for a climbing inspection or tomography etc. Hope that makes things a little clearer.

sorry, finaL comment before I put the wean to bed. I should ahve read the counter argument properly. I didn't say bad example, I said stupid. Does it put my posting in a different context if I say a 'grossly oversimplified example selected for its illustrative purposes'? When I am looking at trees I trry and look atthe whole tre. The canopy for vigour, every branch, limb, fork, every bit of the stem and as much of the roots and butresses as possible, and I stamp about a bit to see if there is anything telling under the ground. What my purpose in that is (others may take a different approach) I am looking at every possible way the tree or any bit of it can fail. And then how likely that failure is. Then I pick the most likely failure. That is a start for quantifying one part of the risk i.e likelihood of failure. And the size of treh part that can fail and the height it will fall from points to the seriousness and likelihood of harm. Then I stand there for 3 months to see how many people go past.

oh and another thing... and i am being counter-counter-argumentative here... what reason might I (or anyone) have to be biased? unless i am secretly a sales agent for QTRA.

Rob Arb, I think I pointed out the likely flaws myself, I know it's not perfect and the assessments i find myself doing on site get a lot more complicated. But I STILL say if you don't try to quantify you get nowhere. I don't want to be a case law bore but the whole thing was brought into stark relief in bowen and others v national trust, kind of backs up the benefits of having a reasonably robust basis for assessing risk. I would hate for someone to be hurt by a tree on my watch, but if one were up in front of queens counsel for negligent tree assessment resulting in deaths and one presented the defence that one thought the tree was ok because one knows about this sort of thing, QC would shred you like you had been tossed into a chipper head first. Even an expert (I mean Lonsdale standard) would get a grilling. I wouldn't hide behind risk assessments, the courts (see bowen) know treees are fickle and would recognise that by using a reasonably robust system a defendant had done all that was reasonable. I think tht that's more or less what the Occupiers Liability Act says.

Sorry I haven't been able to reply before now. I don't know what QTRA is if it is a brand of risk assessment. I do risk assessments. I am not assessing the risk of a tree failing I am assessing the risk of someone being sertiously hurt by a tree failing. If that's what QTRA does, that is basically what I am doing. Stupid example to illustrate the arithmetic ... Tree with kretzschmaria bursting forth from every crevice, and I m ean proper soft-rot-brittle-failure-likely. Upwind from a well used footpath. There's a 50:50 chance of the tree harming someone (or worse) while they ar ein the danger zone. So, probability of harm 0.5 It can be obseved that on average someone passes once a minute. They will be within the death zone for 15 seconds each. So, there is a target present 1/4 of the time, or to put it another way probability of a target being present at time of failure 0.25. Probability of tree couping over prior to next scheduled inspection 1 in 10 or 0.1. Risk 0.25 x 0.5 x 0.1 = 0.0125 or 1:80. Way way above the specified 1:10,000. That tree would be phoned in for removal within 48 hours. The arithmetic for that timescale is not much more complex. It is easy to see how things are never that simple. What about during the night? Don't trees fail usually in strong winds when there are less people using paths etc. etc.? And I am doing VTAs so there is an imperative to instruct expert examination, climbing inspection, intrusive testing etc. I am just AA Tech and PTI, also a tree surgeon, which seems to be more than enough for the client, I think I have a little knowledge to spare beyond the requirements of the contract. I should add that I am surveying great long stretches of footpaths, streets, school boundaries etc. where the target probability needs only to be estimated once. All in all, Is till say that if you can't at least try to quantify the risk and have athreshold to work to you would stand the bottom of every tree, and possibly eventually at the front of a courtroom someday, umming and ahhing in a most unseemly and unproductive manner.

Sorry that should say 'every single day for every single tree'

Wow, you guys are giving this subject a good seeing to! I amn't sure what this QTRA is, is it that sysstem devised by Forbes Laird that you have to pay for to get a license to use? This winter I am surveying around 8,000 trees for a nearby local authority. The contract specifies (words to this effect) that trees must pass the 1:10,000 risk of serious harm test or works must be specified to bring the tree within that probability. Evey single day for every single day I quantify the risk, there is no scope for pontification about the benefits or drawbacks of statistics or the question of whether a tree is Ok or not. It either passes or fails the threshold. And the more I have read your interesting and entertaining debat the more I am reassured that (i) without quantification of risk the whole business is impossible and (ii) most aspects of quantification are not that hard really. Read any survey report, if the author is worth a tosser the report will make it very clear (i.e. not just buried in the small print and disclaimers) that there is no such thing as a safe tree and that the report can only try and predict that the likelihood of harm is or is not above the threshold of acceptibility. The difficulty therefore lies often with the lack of client/public understanding with the limitations (and I don't mean cop-outs) of tree surveys and reports. That's my view anyway. It keeps me sane out on survey day after day after day.... when otherwise I would go ga ga.

Dead right. Small businesses earn money, banks literally make it out of fresh air. They are a necessary evil, I plan to continue to use them only to teh extent things can'be done any other way.

Methyl blue.

Nicely put, TS. I would add that felling while an application is in and with a request for an AIA outstanding would be unwise. So if the COuncil gets the AIA it has a couple of options, but it depends what the AIA concludes. If it concludes development can take place (even while encroaching on RPA) without loss of trees, the Council would be hard pushed to challenge that view by a suitable consultant and should grant subject to conditions for the trees' protection. If it concludes the trees can't be saved, it might still grant consent but if it feels the trees are special and that there is a public interest it probably shouldn't just refuse consent but should also make a TPO. I would phone up the Council and informally ask what weight it is attacvhing to the trees and why. At worst you will be told nothing, at best it may provide some useful perspective and result in a better AIA. If the Council is asking for an expensive AIA out of laziness that would be indefensible. It sounds like there is a precautionary presumption against loss. Tread carefully in all such situations.

To answer earlier question, a couple of customers have mentioned they are happier writing cheques to our company but no-one ever said they wouldn't have made a cheque to me or my business partner personally. I think it looks more professional to have company account, especially when dealing with bigger commercial clients. OK, when I started with our bank the charging structure was bearable. Then the year free banking was up and the costs were indeed Ok. Then we got a letter saying that in a few months time the bankl would be adding (for no additional service) a service charge of £120 a year. That really p****d me off. I then looked at changing banks but all the local banks did the same thing at about the same time. I thought about shifting account to get another year free somewhere, but it's so much hassle to change it. As has been said, banks are in business like us, but if they could do it without levying a service charge before, why charge now? If they did that to their personal current account customers they wouldn't have any left. Final moan on the matter is this. The service charge (ignoring the extra transaction charges) is the same whether you use the bank once a year or a thousand times. Whether you are putting £1000 through it or £100,000. If I was startign again I would try and get by with a personal account for as long as possible before paying for a business account.

Slings are the only way! Bin them as soon as they start to look distressed, otherwise they are confidence-inspiring, fast, easy to choker and have never let us down. Our main lowering rope has a figure of 8 permanently tied in it, it is the knot that loses least rope strength, to my knowledge. Linked to sling by a steel screwgate krab. Dynamic loading can almost always be catered for in the capstan. Nearly broke a lowering rope once with about 300k of chestnut I tipped off, but it held. I just had to change underpants and cut the figure of 8 off and tie a new one. Sling and krab were fine.

We gotta have a business account, customers don't like to write cheques to either of the partners personally. Makes you look dodgy if you don't have a business account anyway. And if you ever need to borrow off the bank, it sure helps to have banked with them for a few years as a business. I'd sooner diwe than borrow off the bank, mind you, they ar eslowly and discretely bleeding money from us, like a leech. Only a small amount but annoying considering they do nothing much for it. I am with Clydesdale Bank, when my free year was up I looked at Bank of Scotland and Royal Bank, they were more or less the same cost. I now use the account purely for paying in cheques (by post, haven't been to a branch for nearly a year), direct debits, online purchases and transferring drawings. Never ever use it to pay in or withdraw cash, the charges are thievery.

Overcast, cold and drizzly in Glasgow. Gonna be a hard winter for the squirrels anyway, there are just about no conkers, acorns, beech nuts round here. If it's not cold enough for hibernation that's bad news.

An enormous task! If you could narrow it down people like me could pitch in. No point, for example, in me sending you every picture I have of trees, leaves, buds etc. but if there wasa running list somewhere of what species and varieties you have already got I could check it and would be more likely to send you stuff for the rest.

Sorry, I meant to say again my understanding is based on Scottish law. And is no substitute for commissioned advice.

Thanks for the interesting reference to the case that refined the definition of 'intention'. Still sounds to me like one definition is 'wilful' and the other is more like 'reckless'. But with the penalties being so severe who wants to take a chance? TPO legislation CANNOT be used to prevent a land use, it can only be used to penalise unauthorised tree work (including felling). The land use can be an old estblished one or a new one. And if the landowner protected the roots and continued the use there would be nothing the Council could do under TPO law to stop it. The Council could use OTHER legislation to stop the use. If it is trying to use TPO law it is barking up the wrong tree and won't I think get very far with formal action. As it stands with the roots unprotected the Council would have to prove that the landowner, purposefully for the indirect and foreseeable outcome of destroying the trees, allows your friend to have customers drive over the roots of the trees once a month. I doubt if that is the intention of the TPO laws , if the landowner was at all purposeful about getting rid of the trees there would be easier quicker and more certain ways of doing it.

Ah but if you interpret 'wilful' as deliberate then it would only be an offence under TPO law if vehicles were being driven over roots for the purpose of destroying them and the trees. I would be more worried if the law said 'reckless'. The LA would be hard pushed to show that the landowner was permitting the damage for the purpose of destroying the trees. Reminiscent of the change that was made in the law about destroying birds nests, the law used to say wilful but was changed to reckless, because there had been an easy defense. That is why I think if the LA brought root damage to landowners attention and the activity that was causing the damage then continued a defense would become more difficult. But not impossible

Another RBOTI reply here. The English legislation may be slighly different from what we have up here, but if it were here the TPO couldn't in any way be used to stop the use. It could be used though to prosecute for wilful damage or destruction of trees. The penalties are quite severe. But the damage has to be wilful and since it is not the result of a single action like felling or excavation and your average 4X4 guy couldn't be expected to know he was damaging a tree by driving over roots, it could be tricky for the LA to pin it on one person or to show that it was wilful. If the LA brings it to the attention that continued use will cause damage, it might thereafter be construed as wilful, but as someone has pointed out further damage could be prevented by resurfacing etc. Sounds likk you're right about the politics. The answer to your question, based on Scottish legislation, would be NO!

Snioppet from nearby Informed Tree Services website... "The Forestry Commission Scotland have released the following disease alert. It relates to Chalara fraxinea - a potentially very serious risk to our Fraxinus excelsior (Common Ash) population.: "Alert issued as ash tree disease found in Scotland Forestry Commission Scotland is urging woodland managers throughout Scotland to be vigilant for signs of a serious disease that has affected ash trees in Europe. The appeal follows the discovery of Chalara dieback of ash (caused by the fungus Chalara fraxinea) in trees planted in 2009 in a woodland managed by Forest Enterprise Scotland (FES) at Knockmountain, 2km north of Kilmacolm. "The 200 hectare (ha) site has 20 ha of mixed broadleaves including 58,000 ash plants. The disease, which has recently been recorded at three nursery sites / locations in England, has the potential to kill millions of ash trees if it spreads into the natural environment – as it has done in Europe, including the death of an estimated 60 to 90 per cent of Denmark’s ash trees. Bugger!

Sure looks like kretzschmaria deusta to me. Bear in mingd by the time the black stuff has appeared at the surface the fungus may already have hollowed the tree out form the inside. You see whole beech trees just snap at the base due to this stuff. If you've got a riddled leaner that close to the road you would need to have a very good reason not to fell it within a couple of weeks.

Alder Buckthorn and Cockspur Thorn both have 2 or 3 seeds per fruit, never 4. I'd say it's definitely Malus and then I'd give up.

Brett's comments about tar spot in fife and Angus fairly spoils my amateur theory but then born2trot confirms Aberdeen is same as around Glasgow. Southeast, Wales, Merseyside and Bucks spotty. I was down in London between Christmas and New Year last year and the Planes were still partly in leaf along Pall Mall. See photo. Mild aint the word. There aren't enough up here for me to have noticed if they came out early.