daltontrees

That's got to be a record.

That's a bit heavy, is it not. With a typo at the all-important bit. Writing to tell you that you were in the right but big brother is watching you, you got away with it this time but tread carefully...

Officially yes permission would be needed. When making the new legislation the numbskulls at Parliament removed the right to remove a nuisance. I took it up wuith the MInister, he fobbed me off with some jobsworth in SF who the situation didn't occur very often so it wasn't a problem to require applications. I would have thought, it doesn't occur very often so why remove the exemption.

Well, the guy is a leading light in static load testing so I didn't want to be too hard on him.😉

You have got to appreciate, we now have separate legislation in Scotland and no Forestry Commission. Whatever rules apply or applied to England have no effect here. I have been told the 5 cube is per owner. A close look at the legislation backs this up. The exemption is to the owner, not to the land. The English legislation is worded differently and does seem to support the interpretation there of the exemption being per piece of land.

I recall the article, but I would observe that there is more to tree risk assessment than tree hazard assessment, one has to take into account target presence and severity of harm or damage in the event of failure. But yes, it's a subject where some like to hide behind the impossibility of seeing inside every tree while others, the ones you'd like to have in your corner in a fight, can take quantificatoin usefully quite a long way. Recently a (remaining nameless) static load testing guru told me that if the tree passed a static load test the risk from it was zero and if it didn't the risk was unacceptable because it will fail. I think that was taking it a bit TOO far.

Firstly... there never was a windthrow exemption, but the Commission was lax about it as a matter of informal policy. Then the legislation changed. Now the rules are mostly the same but the new Scottish Forestry seems to want to control windthrow removal as a means of ensuring control over restocking. That's the impression I get for its motives. You can remove dead trees without using up the 5 cube. Then if you move on to windthrow you start to use up your 5 cube a quarter allowance. basically treat them like standing timber unless they have died as a result of windthrow. Be careful about using the 'danger' exemption, it is for prevention of immediate danger only. Since in most situations danger can be avoided by staying away from an area while a Permission application is pondered at leisure by SF, the danger situation is only useful where there are unavoidable targets like roads, overhead lines and buildings. But if the danger exemption is used, it is in addition to the dead and the 5 cube exemptions and any of the other exemptions. Think of the exemptions as an AND list, not an OR list. And finally, the 5 cube exemption does not apply where it's a small native woodland or Caledonian PIne wood. So it's an AND BUT NOT IF list. The exemptions are per ownership. So it's 5 cube a quarter whether you have 10 trees or a million trees.

You mean no point in that report for you? I don't agree with the generalities. Whereas we will never know everything about every tree (and 100% is a very high target to set), it is not an excuse for not trying or not reducing the uncertainties as much as possible. In fact, the law requires risk assessors to do just that. The article contains interesting general information about tree assessment and failure criteria which apply to most situations, and whereas I will not use them for palms I can see that they provide a better insight into biomechanics. I'd rather have the info and where to find it but not use it than to guess or not care or to be at the mercy of snake-oil merchants whose prescriptions turn out to have no objective basis.

Shame you're not in Scotland or I'd have you a few days a week.

Rigorous article, but heavy going. I have nearly no experience of palm trees, I don't know how they behave compared to woody trees. I totally agree about dubious grey literature and floppy editing, unfortunately the trend is towards unreviewed articles promoted by commercial or other vested interests. Those intersts must be delighted when they become 'truth'. Advertisers have doen it since the dawn of civilisation.

We have a Ulefone 7 and a Ulefone Pro 7, both great so far, a few maddening eccentricities, but so did my previous Galaaxy. You MUST get a temepered glass screen for them though. They come with a polycarbonate one but it gets scratched and loses sharpness quite soon. Extraordinary cameras, Built in clinometer. Decent torch. Assignable side button. Waterproof. Lanyard attachment point. Battery goes on and on if you switch it to dark mode and stay off the 'location' and 'moble data' functions and spend a couple of minutes finding the several things you need to do to disable Google Play, which still manages to send notifications telling you that you have disabled notifications. Grrr! £110 on Amazon.

No the time extension rule for planning apps does not extend to TPO apps.

Yes they do differ. In a CA you notify and the Council can only stop you by making a TPO. In a TPO you apply and the Council can stop you by refusing, or in this case doing nothing, which is what is known as a 'deemed refusal'. This rule only varies between Councils when they don't know what they are doing and don't know the law as it stands.

Appeal. It is a deemed refusal. Theere's a right of appeal. It costs nothing. Do it right away, as the right of appeal has a time limit. You might actually be too late. If you want specifics, say what country you are in.

CAVAT, apart from being a load of bollocks, is not applicable to private trees.

I interpret the Regulations differently. The CA exemption is in Reg 15 which exempts work "in the circumstances mentioned in regulation 14.". The circumstances in Reg 14 are that "Nothing in regulation 13 shall prevent... the cutting down, topping, lopping or uprooting of a tree ... which is dead;" Regulation 13 relates only to TPOs. The special 5 day rule in Reg 14 can only only apply to TPO situations. The requirement for a 5 day notice is not a 'circumstance', it is an additional legal rule for TPO'd trees. It is an alternative to a TPO application. If anything this is supported by the part of the guidance you cite. However, the guidance is badly written and should say "A section 211 notice is not required where the cutting down, topping, lopping or uprooting of a tree would be permissible under any exception to the requirement to apply for consent as if a tree was under a Tree Preservation Order." I guess the subtle but important grammatical distinction was beyond the writer of the guidance. This is consistent with the principle that CA tree rules are precautionary rather than preventative. Thus, in TPOs application are downgraded to notifications, and in CAs notifications are downgraded to nothing. The more I look at it the more I am convinced that the law is framed in the way I interpret it i.e. no 5 day notice for dead CA tree removals. In Scotland the rules are a little different and are scattered across various instruments in a way that makes their understanding really really difficult, but essentially there has never been a 'dead' exemption, on the basis presumably that a dead tree is not a tree and is de facto not protected. No notice of intention to remove a dead tree is required or even possible at law. An attempt at interpreting the English s.211 notice requirements in CAs for dead trees would be futile. The CA exemptions in Scotland have never been stated as being those relevant to TPOs.

The 5 day rule only applies to TPO'd dead trees. Does not apply in CAs.

When you say RPA, do you mean CA? The normal situation is, any works implicit or explicit in the approved application don't need separate notification. It is also very common for permission conditions to say no trees are to be touched during development. If it's a CA and they removals are not mandated by the planning permission, the way forward is to see if the permission conditions contain an approval mechanism for additional tree works. If so, use that. If not, it's normal CA rules. Best to document for client protection whether the tree condition is wholly or partly due to the works that have taken place around them. Remember, if it's a CA you don't have to give a reason for the works, but it sure as heck helps if you volunteer them when you notify.

I have always thought that in some way the planning application should confer some temporary protection of a tree, but there is no basis in law for this that i can find. However, take a tree down on a site with a live application and you might find your client gets a TPO on the whole site the next day. Indeed, this happened to a client of mine last month. About 100 trees TPO'd because a few small trees got bulldozed during site preparations. If nothing else, you will piss off the planners at a time when compromises need to be negotiated. You'll know this anyway, but BS5837 only requires risks that are 'serious and imminent' to be flagged up. Any lesser risks can also be mentioned under the general heading of management recommendations but they may be hard to justify doing urgently unless they are a risk in teh context of current or permitted development. I know you to be a QTRA user, so I'd also mention that I equate 'serious and imminent' to QTRA 'unacceptable', about 1/1,000 or greater, as this seems to be an appropriate benchmark. It's a different business assessing risk relative to proposed development. This is hypothetical risk that can only materialise when consent is granted and development is underway or completed. I think it's pretty hard to justify pre-emptive felling for that kind of risk, but it can be thrown into the mix in a planning application as the basis for removal. If the tree is over 5 cu.m. and not in one of the exempted clsses, a felling license/permission may be needed. The risk exemption is 'prevention of immediate danger' which I benchmark to QTRA 'unacceptable' too. Trees with large cavities may be batty, so I'd look out for that. I think it is worth bearing in mind that unless motives are to be misconstrued the removal of a whole tree on a planning application site is hard to justify if lesser works like reduction would reduce the risk considerably while deferrring a decision on the rest of the tree.

I wouldn't rule out an on-the-spot TPO. These have been done in the past. If it's permitted by SOs, and a witness second Council officer is there, the Order's effective. Last Council I worked for had SOs that allowed it in emergencies if it was done with the verbal agreement of the committee chair or vice-chair. Throw it in the bin at your client's peril!

My ubnderstanding has always been that cherry 's main means of defence after breakages or abrasions (and so after pruning) is the production of gum which blocks the infection pathways. This is at its maximum production in summer months, therfore that is the best time to prune. However, I don't know how a tree knows when it is 'summer'. Some tree species react to day length, some to air temperature. If cherries react to daylength then gum production will tail off even if autumn and early winter is mild. If so, pruning now would be risky.

I wonder. Armillaria famoiusly can move on to its next host by root contact, and doesn't seem to fruit that often. Do you think this one is fruiting because the tree is elevated off the ground and there is no other way of moving on?

In theory (and I have heard of it happen) the TPO could hand-write a TPO there and then like a parking ticket and serve it on you. The COuncil doesn't need to 'determine' the application, it's not an application, it's a notification. It nooed sto decide whether to stop you by making a TPO or if it is being helpful it could tell you that it's OK to go ahead. I once had 2 squad cars and 4 rozzers turn up, along witht the whole committee of the local residents association, just as I had attached a cable to the top of the biggest tree on a site and the guys were tensioning the winch up. It was really hard to get it across to the baying crowd that I didn't need a bit of paper to say I could go ahead, I just needed the absence of a bit that said I can't go ahead. In the end I told them that we were in teh right, we were doing teh work and if they stopped us I would sue for a day's wages for 6 guys, trasnport etc. Alternatively they were welcome to stay and be witnesses in a CA prosecution if they really really thought I was dumb enough to be going ahead without having followed due process. There was mumblings, scribbling of my reggie plates and phone number, pocketing of the business cards I handed over and then sheepish withdrawal when I said there was a small chance the tree might go the wrong way and squash them or a car.

That's never Honey Fungus. Looks right for Mycena. No threat to tree anyway, might even be doing some good.

No comprende!? You don't need to justify felling in a CA. Except retrospectively when exceptions are relied on.