daltontrees

The burning of commercial waste is illegal and an offence under the Clean Air Act 1993 and Environmental Protection Act 1990. ... Failure to comply with the requirements is an offence contrary to the Environmental Protection Act 1990 and is punishable by a fixed penalty notice or prosecution. Whilst it is not against the law to have a bonfire to dispose of garden waste and there are no set times when bonfires are allowed, residents should be aware thatt he council can take legal action if the smoke causes what is described as a ‘statutory nuisance’, taking into account how dense the smoke is, how long the fire lasts and how often it happens.

Looks like Acacia dealbata to me ('Mimosa')

Attached is the Microguide that was produced to accompany the British Standard BS8596. Please note it requires the user to have undergone basic bat awareness training. For me this took less than a day and cost less than £150. As I see it the training is needed to understand the habits of bats and the guide is needed to form a systematic basis for inspection and recording of findings. Legal requirements, tick! I would commend it to anyone who wants to consolidate their understanding and approach. Especially if you think you already know, because you probably don't. BSI-Bat-Microguide-UK-EN.pdf

We've probably all had good and bad experiences. It is parliament that has chosen to protect bats. On the whole that's a good thing. Ecologists can really make a meal of it. I had a site where the client asked me to sign off the trees for bats (which I am qualified to do) but also asked the ecologist to do the same. It was all that Planning wanted. I surveyed the trees for bat roost features at the same time as BS5838 survey. I charged an extra £60 for the supplementary report, and indemnified the client agaist claims and prosecution for destruction or disturbance. I was absolutely satisfied that there was low or negligible risk, all per the British Stnadard, amd I confirmed it in writing. The ecologists, on the other hand, camped out (2 of them) doing dawn and dusk emergence surveys for 3 nights (after a delay of 2 months to allow hibernation to end) and monitored activity in a 100m radius with heterodyne detectors and mist nets and god knows what else. Charged £1,200. Reached the same conclusion, buried deep in lots of irrelevant stuff about foraging. I like bats, I believe they should be protected, and I provide an inexpensive service that gets straight to the point because I find it results in less resentment when there is realistic and practical advice about solutions. The thing is, the law is the law and in most situations bats don't get in the way unless you ask an ecologist, they can be very risk averse and very pro-wildlife even when it is not present. The greatest risk I perceive to bats is contractors who think they know all there is to know and are exposing customers ot risk of prosecution by letting their judgment be clouded by inverted snobbery about bat consultants. There's a perfectly good, free, standard for contractors to use to sign off on bats in trees. I would urge all contractors to use it. It is an easy conversion from thinking they know it all to knowing enough to protect themselves, customers and bats. You can even charge for it.

There are established procedures for assessing potential roost features and for (if necessary) removing them in a seasone when they are not occupied. In the meantime H&S does not trump bats, I have haad the same issue with birds where the client had to exclude people form the fall zone around a tree pending a shitty looking pigeon deciding to take his time leaving a nest. In some situatiosn I agree bats are possibly done in or roosts detroyed to avoid getting involved with the expense, delays and uncertainty of bat issues.

There's lots of horrible angry and poorly informed stuff being spouted in this post. Well, it's not even about the tree and question posted at the start. If someone asks a question can't we all just express opinions and let the OP decide what to take from it instead of people yelling that their opinion is more valid than others? Some bizzare egos on this forum, that's for sure. And a fair number who just like an argument. Here's my opinion. That cedar has probably carried that hazard beam for decades. Doesn't mean it won't fail, but hardly urgent. 2. From a couple of pics that don't show the context fully, none of us can say what the right solution is. As usual the answer is to get somebody competent to look at it in 3d or advise the customer to do something ill-informed with unknown consequences as a cheaper or indifferent alternative. 3. If work was being proposed I'd likely recommend a check for bat roost potential to protect my client against porsecution, because on the face of it that is the sort of feature that no-one in the world who has read the BCT guidance would defend you for disturbing without checking. Roosts do not need to be active for a strict liability offence to have been committed, the destruction of an empty roost is an offence. 4. Removal of the limb in an old cedar will possibly cause a lot of knock-on damage, when reduction may be all that is needed to reduce the lever arm a little to prevent failure or bracing could do the same.

Silly or not, it's in the Standard to measure in mm. Rounded to nearest cm, so it's effectively not any more precise than cms. Rail against it if you want, but best just to do it anyway. Seeing reporting in cm is kind of annoying, it suggests the report author doesn't know or respect the Standard. Reporting in inches, you'd have to be in the dark ages or in America, possibly one in the same...

I probably passed you. I was based in Tomintoul all week surveying trees on the Crown Estate, which ends at the Lecht. Best survey ever. I ran out of petrol at Braemar onthe way home, the petrol station had shut minutes before. Only had enough to get to Ballater, wouldn;'t have made it to Blairgowrie over Glenshee. So I went over the Cairngorms on the Aboyne to Fettercairn road, what a roller coaster that road is! The stretch from Crathie to Lecht is pretty mental too. I saw a couple of broken cyclists along the wayside.

Here's a couple of pics from yesterday. The inside is quite surreal.

£10 a test. All my clients so far have been too mean to pay for me to confirm Phytopthora with these, but I will try one soon even if I have to pay for it myself. What?

I swear by the High 5 Zero tablets, they're pretty cheap if you buy them in bulk. One of them in a litre of water keeps me tip-top in hot weather, otherwise I'm sluggish then cramping and headachy. They don't have sugar in them, so they don't give energy, but they sure as heck work fast. I mess about with different mixes of squash with them.

Get it on the record that you consder the damage his fault and that he should have foreseen and prevented the damage. Don't let him hide behind fake conservation area protection. If the neighbour still does nothing, get a lawyer involved. As you describe it, you will prevail. Or live without a wall.

The Conservation Area is almost irrelevant and shouldn't be an obstacle to removal of the tree as long as notification of its removal is given to the Council 6 weeks in advance. The only thing the Council can do to stop it is to make a TPO and if it does that you apply for removal, get a refusal and the Council becomes liable for any further damage. But I suspect the problem is with the tree owner?

I was out on a survey in the north of Scotland last week, the farmer's wife told me last year they had a tree at the end of the garden, one evening they heard a bang, went out the next day and the tree had been hit by lightning and exploded into lots of bits. As they cleared up the mess they found a cow and calf dead underneath. She said they couldn't tell if tthe beasts had been killed by the lightning or the tree but she had seen them sheltering under the tree earlier.

You had the arrogance to have a go at Mick because he didn't go off and read your document or acknowledge your self-professed expertise. There are other reasons to deal with peceptions of SBD, whatever that actually is. I didn't get banned from UKTC, I left. You got barred, as I recall, then re-registered to get round the bar. That was weird. Haven't thought about it since. I'm not pursuing anyone. You made indecent sexual and libellous comments on UKTC, not me. I left. You come on Arbtalk to promote yourself, nothing else. I'm on here frequently on a whole variety of subjects. I can't get away from you, not that you're of any consequence. Its a rough and ready place that doesn't tolerate transparent twats. Away back to the hamster wheel.

Is the tree protected by a TPO?

Direct damage to a building by roots or branches. Indirect damage (subsidence). Overhanging preventing use of land (say a house extension or a shed or garage being erected). And daylighting loss if it's extreme enough. Rights of light are a different matter. They are aquired (England only) by express grant or by prescription and relate only to windows and blockage of light from adjacent land, not on the affected land. I have known situations where the blockage of light from overhanging trees has been so great that pruning has taken place lawfully without application. The right exists. It's in the legislation. It was put there by parliament. Deliberately.

Fine, but personally I would like if the industry understood the principles behind these things. The OP might have wanted a yes or a no but he world rarely works thats way. Give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach a man to fish, feed him forever. OP asked if he could prune back to boundary. That's a quite extreme. You said absolutely not. That 's quite extreme too. Technically therefore me saying it isn't true is correct. The in-between scenario is that pruning can take place without TPO approval in specific circumstances. The TPO relates to the tree, and it it's a group/area/woodland of trees it relates to all trees originating within that area. But it is a fundamentally important principle that statute should not stop anyone doing what he is obliged to do at common law, or under any other law for that matter. That is the basis of many of the exemptions. One can even see that when risk of damage is foreseeable but not imminent and a Council refuses permission for works to prevent damage, the obligation for compensation passes to it because it is preventing the tree owner from doing what he should and would, but for the TPO. That is only fair. All this points to an important distinction. The TPO is over the trees, not the land, but restrains the owner of the land on which the tree originates. When the tree overhangs or sends roots into adjacent property, the tree owner is in 'tort' (or delict in Scotland) and he is not restrained from acting to remove the tort. Neither is the encroached party, he too must suffer the tree overhanging or growing under his property but only to the ponit where it is or is about to become a 'nuisance'. This usually involves damage but does not have to (see Williams and Waistell v Network Rail case a few years ago). It is not, therefore a clear cut case of whether it is the tree or the property that the TPO affects. It is the tree up to the point where the owner of the tree is obliged or entitled by statute or common law to do something about the tree.

You can but you need to (a) be sure that there is or imminently will be a legal nuisance and (b) take photos etc. to justify it after the event and (c) only do enough to deal with the nuisance. Don't get carried away, it's not a license to destroy. Oddly enough, in Englandshire anyway, there is a requirement to notify the Council when exercising the dead or risky tree exemptions, but not for the nuisance exemption.

Thank you for confirming. I've only read about it in books and case law.

Sorry but that's not true. The tree is protected but if it is causing or will imminently cause a legal nuisance then the encroached landowner or the tree owner can remove, reduce or prevent the nuisance. The law on this is crystal clear in statute. Pick your country and I will give you the Act and section or Regulation.

If the failure was foreseeable at the time of application and was drawn to the attention of the Council, refusal would usually leave the Council liable for compensation for the damage for a period afterwwards. The period depends where you are. In England I think it's a year. It gets more complicated if you appeal against refusal (which one generally should) as this might extend the period of liability until after the appeal is decided (which I'm told in England takes months and months) .

Close... 'wilful damage'.

That would be wilful damage, carrying unlimited fine on indictment.