daltontrees

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.

Has to be a yew (Taxus baccata).

Straight in with the abrasive smart-ass denigrating attitude as usual Mr Evans. And you still seem to have a massive chip on your shoulder about other consultants and experts. And more thinly-veiled advertising for your paid-for training. Business as usual.

Cutting roots rarely has an immediately destabilising effect, studies have shown that you need to get quite close before the destabilisation is measurable. But the more and bigger you cut the more likely decay will take hold and progress into the rest of the rootplate or buttresses. I woudl have thought from looking at the photos that if you lift the concrete carefully you could put down a 50-75mm layer of Cellweb then pavoirs on top that and possibly not have to cut any roots at all. I am finding that Cellweb + no-fines granular fill as a sub-base is quicker, cheaper and just as good as (in some ways better than) compacted Type 1.

One of my brighter ideas.

It's a poor layout by the builders. Lamp post right up through the tree. No light reaching pavement. Tiny grass area for rooting. Roots are already bouncing off the kerb and both driveways. Of all the cherries in the street this one is by far the most vigorous. I am speculating it is because the light helps growth at night and keeps leaf on later into year.

I did an awkward reduction today on a Tibetan cherry in the pouring rain. I don't think it would have been possible without using the lamp post as a top anchor. Actually couldn't have asked for better. First time for everything

And free advice, obviously.

"Pointlessly measured"? How utterly tragic to read all that we know about the benefits of trees, about the proportionality of risk reduction measures, the importance of habitats and the avoidance of needless tree damage and customer expense swept aside by his phrase. The point is that it is measured. From a few photos you, I an everybody else don't know enough to say whether the tree will last another 1 year, 10 years, 100 years. So what's 'sensible' about taking it down, based on very little information? Does the slight imbalance offend the eye? I'll be even more to the point. Why take it down? And those are not rhetorical questions. Please explain.