daltontrees

But ask yourself this. Given that the planner is duty bound to check on all planning policies and material considerations for any application, does he see the 'no' box ticked and think 'I don't need to check for TPOs then'? And another question, when he sees the box ticked, does he decide to conduct the site visit with some sideways blinkers on that ensure he cannot see any trees? Really, what is the point of the question on the form? It could only result in prosecution if the planner HAS to rely on the answer.

Similar in principle to the Zeppelin Bend you can see the b and q in it. Unfortunately it could collapse without tying the ends down. For the same reason it might be fairly easy to untie after loading.

Standard stuff.

This question was asked in parliament a few years ago. And here's the answer too. Apart form lies about ownership, there is no sanction. It;s a mini charter for interested parties to throw a spanner in the works, which is probably a good check on chancers. It doesn't deal with false information uncovered after approval though. QUESTION To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what sanctions may be imposed on persons who have made false statements or provided false evidence in a planning application. ANSWER The planning application process relies on people acting in good faith. There is an expectation that applicants and those representing them provide decision makers with true and accurate information upon which to base their decisions. However, under section 65(6) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, it is an offence to issue a false ownership certificate knowingly or recklessly. If a local planning authority feels that an application does not accurately or fully describe the proposed development, or that it is in any way misleading, it is entitled to ask the applicant to amend it or rectify any omissions before it agrees to process the application. Planning applications are publicised during the determination period so that any interested parties have the opportunity to comment. If any party considers that the application includes deliberately misleading information, or lacks important information that would be material to the decision, they should report this to the relevant local authority who will decide what, action is appropriate. Planning permission can be refused on the grounds that information provided was insufficient to accurately describe the nature and anticipated impacts of the proposed development.

Assuming you are in England. LAs have statutory power to revoke a planning consent. Usually results in compensation, but not necessarily. I expect it could only be done if the LA decided that with fresh knowledge of the trees the decision on the original application would have been a refusal. There would then be a blame game, and personally I am inclined to think that the onus would be on the Council to explain how it had not properly assessed the application including a site visit. In short, the tick box is pretty meaningless, and I've never come across any law that says that recklessly or carelessly or deliberately providing false information in an application invalidates an approval. I remember decades ago when I was a fresh faced trainee surveyor checking an application for a house plot and finding that the applicant had modified the ordnance survey plan to change the geometry of the main road so that unacceptable visibility splays appeared acceptable. I notified Planning and the application was refused. If I hadn't noticed, the visibility splays would have been checked using only the plan and it might have been approved. There's no real moral dilemma, the inadequate splays would I think have resulted one day in a RTA on a really bad bend.

And here it is with a reef knot.

Here's a double fishermans bracketed by a sheepshank. Possible, but I wouldn't want to do it up a tree in a gale with cold fingers.

I used an alpine butterfly on a rope that was being used to winch a tree over. Took me 10 minutes and a marlin spike to untie it. I can't picture the sheepshank bowline combo.

Like this?

Zep bend is the one. You'll never untie a loaded fishermans. Reef OK but not designed to be heavily loaded.

Names aren't latin, they are latinised, that is to say the gender and case of the species must match the genus and must use the recognised latin style of suffixes. An equivalent in french would be 'Le chat noir' and 'La chatte noire'. In this way, 'rubra' can be the correct match for some genus' but 'rubrum' for others. The genus name can be derived from any language. So can the species name, but if it's plainly nicked from someone's name, like Mr. Lamarck, the latinised grammatically correct species name has to be lamarckii, as in Amelanchier l. There's also the written rule in english that not many people bother with but wouldn't get past review in published articles, that foreign words should either be underlined or italicised (or within inverted commas), as I have done above. The word 'italicies' itself is derived from its root word 'Italy', a nod to the romans. Just conventions. The good thing about using latin and latinising is that no-one speaks latin, so it is not subject to accent, dialect or corruption.

I was going to guess at Populus x jackii, but it turns out that that is a synonym for 'Aurora'.

There's X Malosorbus florentina (Syn Malus florentina), Hybrid of wood apple (Malus sylvestris) and wild service tree (Sorbus torminalis). A small rounded tree from southern Europe with 1cm red fruits.

This is a messy business. Rule one, never ask for an 'estimate', always ask for a 'quote'. The quote is for a specific service, and the consultant cannot demand haigher payment unless additional work has arisen and he has got your approval to do the extra work for an agreed additional fee. Rule two, always specify outputs from consultancy work that are waht you need and which then belong to you, so that you can ditch a dodgy conslutlant and bring in a new one who can pick up where the old one left off. So much for hindsight. Instead, with your estimate you are more at common law odds with the consultant. But I think it is for him to justify why the price has increased AND why an additional quote (or estimate) awas not provided by him prior to him embarking on the additional work. Any half decent consultant will always do a wee bit extra for a client without whinging about extra costs. It happens on almost every job, so much so that it's almost standard in pricing to allow for a few extra hours to be spent at no extra fee. There are situations where jobs grow arms and legs nad no-one could have seen it coming, and you have to ask the client to increase the fee, or else you will be working for nothing and will be poorly motivated to prioritise his work and go the extra yard for him. Good clients understand that. I'd say you shouldn't just stump up, as the consultant to justify the increase and explain why he didn't get your prior clearance to proceed on the basis of an agreed higher cost. An estimate is a guess when there are a lot of unknowns, but for an AMS on a known site he had himself surveyed, a doubling is well beyond what would be considered possible and reasonable. And if you are also not happy with the service he provided, it would be reasonable to hold the price as disputed.

It's a Poplar, likely a hybrid of Balsam Poplar. The infection is the fungal Melampsora rust. Affects Poplar in summer but overwinters on a separate host, usually Larch. Bugger all you can do about it, except perhaps clearing away fallen leaves ofther during summer, and getting rid of lower stem epicormics.

Reduced fee, good for client relationships. Home early, get some admin stuff done for a couple of found hours.

One of those pictures is the 'Elegans' type which is not very representative of C. japonica. Some of the small or shrubby varieties have more dense foliage. Have a look at 'Compacta'. There's very few species that have incurved leaves. Cryptomeria virtually has the market cornered, but also look at Athrotaxus selaginoides.

A consultant might be able to advise that removal is not necessary if all that is wrong is damage to neighbour's patio. For local clients I charge £95 for a visit, verbal advice and a confirmatory letter. Felling costs saved. Tree saved. Relations with neighbour saved. Sleepless nights saved. Insurance premia saved.

Well, you've been dealing with the wrong sort of consultants. When I am advising clients I make it clear it's my job to tell them what they need to hear, not what they want to hear, and that I have no financial interest in whether there is paid tree work coming out of it or not. I alos tell them they are paying to transfer the risk to me and my insurers and that they should sue me if I get it wrong. It's not in teh slightest self-serving. Or should the OP come on to the internet and accept the gung-ho advice of people who have never seen the tree, don't know local soil and climate conditins and (on the evidence) don't understand some of the fundamantals of shrinkable clays and certainly won't be coming forward to accept blame for uninformed actions? Or should they accept the advice of the tree surgeon who advised to take the tree down in one go because staged removal would somehow generate more roots? Said tree surgeon could have meant well but he also stood to get a lucrative job out of it. What side of caution would a commercially-interested contractor giving out free unwritten advice fall? I'm just going to add, asking about heave on a public website could amount to foreknowledge. Cost of advice compared with cost of getting it wrong (with or without insurance)? Can be money well spent. To be frank, I don't think any of us can tell enough about the circumstances to know for sure if independent advice should be bought. But this notion of self-serving consultants is I think an unhelpful distraction from choosing the right thing to do.

All the circumstances suggest there's little risk of heave. i.e. no history of trees on the site, recent construction that should have adhered to NHBC guidelines, deep foundations already noted. There's a big difference between patio slabs being lifted by shallow roots and heave/subsidence by shrinkage or swelling of deep clays.

Keeping but cyclically reducing the tree is an option, and could in the right circumstances be defensible in a claim for damages form adjacent owner.

The issue being discussed was heave. In areas of shrinkable clays long-standing trees can result in shrunk clays and if they are built-on in dehydrated state and then trees are removed the clays will swell and cause heave of the ground and damage to buildings. Some suggest that the damaging effects on heave to buildings can be reduced by removing the trees gradually, but the obvious truth is that the overall swelling and heave will occur eventually whether done gradually or all in one go, and gradual removal is not goijng to change that. If anything, it would be worse to remove in stages.

I meant to say, the issue seems to be nothing to do with shrinkability of clays.

The tree will try and replace shoots to be in equilibrium with existing roots. Won't produce more roots. The situation with pops is different, Poplar reproduces asexually for the most part and throwing up suckers is an automatic reaction to felling or heavy pruning. The staged reduction thing has been discredited, as you suggest.

Isn't there a danger that offices over the RPA will deprive the tree roots of water?