daltontrees

That's exactly it. The good thing about scientific names is that they are composed in a language that no-one uses for anything else. Thus it's international, doesn't evolve or mutate, leaves no room for ambiguity. Expecting everyone to use English is a peculiarly English thing. And of course the problem that the biggest group of English speakers (USA) don't speak the same English as the English. Not only do they call sycamores planes, they call planes sycamores. Limes are basswoods, poplars are cottonwoods and so on. And to get back to the original post, you can use the latinised naming to find meaning that can help you remember. So , based on leaf shape sycamore is Acer pseudoplatanus (= false + plane), Norway maple is Acer platanoides (= plane-like), and London plane is Platanus x acerifolia (= maple + leaves). If you're trying to memorise them I think it's always worth looking up the meaning. It might (might) give you something memorable to work with. Also, say them out loud, it helps make them stick. No-one speaks latin anymore so there's no right or wrong way to pronounce them. You can corrupt the pronunciation any way you want that helps you remember them. But if you use rude mnemonics, try not to use them later in meetings or with customers. There comes a point when you just have to know them as new words. Acer, fagus, quercus, fraxinus and other common native genus are the original latin names, they have no other meaning.

There's a country park near me that is quite boggy in places, and in the middle there are loads of willows that defy identification. At one end the'yre definitely caprea, and the other end I'd be comfortable confirming cinerea. But in the middle there's all sorts of mad combos and at least one other species in the mix, aurita I think. I found this explanation today about Grey Willow, which I thought was helpful. Grey Willow and Goat Willow collectively are known as 'Pussy Willow' because of their silky hairy buds in early spring. Easily mistaken for Goat Willow (Salix caprea) (which also has 2 sub-species as does Grey Willow), the differences being: If the bark is peeled off 2-year-old twigs, then the exposed surface is ridged on Grey Willow (but smooth on Goat Willow) The bark of Grey Willow grows darker and has shallower ridges than that of Goat Willow The leaves of Grey Willow are usually much smaller and between 2 to 3 times as long as broad and broadest beyond halfway to the tip Grey Willow (the much more common ssp. oliifolia sub-species - which is sometimes known as Rusty Willow) has fine felty hairs on the underside of the leaves and rusty-looking hairs along the veins on the underside of the leaf (whereas Goat Willow does not) The flowers on Grey Willow also start later than those of Goat Willow The softly-furry 'pussies' are slightly larger on Goat Willow Grey Willow is much less often found away from damp areas than is Goat Willow But, the hybrid of Grey Willow with Goat Willow is common. It is native and a shrub or small tree growing to 6m high (15m max), thus usually smaller than the similar Goat Willow which is 10m high, 19m maximum. Grey Willow exists as two sub-species: Salix cinerea ssp. cinerea (which is much less abundant and mainly occupies fens in a triangle between Burton on Trent at the centre, with Hull at the northern limit and Gravesend at the southern limit. Although in the last 10-15 years it seems to have departed from most of Norfolk and since the turn of the Century from most of Northern Ireland, it has however been spreading very slowly in apparently random isolated spots randomly throughout the UK since 2010). This species is usually persistently hairy. The leaves are dull and hairy (or not) on the upper surface and densely hairy on the underside. Leaf shape is mostly oblong or obovate. At low altitudes this species is found on marshes and fens. Salix cinerea ssp. oleifolia which is much the most widespread throughout the UK. The twigs become glabrous (hairless) as they grow. The leaves are mostly narrow-obovate or oblong and less glossy than those of ssp. cinerea and nearly glabrous on the upper surface. On the underside the leaves have grey hairs and some stiffer rust-coloured hairs along the veins. This sub-species is sometimes known as Rusty Willow for that reason. It is found in wet places, woods, both lowlands and uplands. It is the commonest species of Willow in the lowlands. Hybridizes with : Goat Willow (Salix caprea) to produce Salix × reichardtii Goat Willow (Salix caprea) + Creeping Willow (Salix repens) to produce Salix × permixta Eared Willow (Salix aurita) to produce Salix × multinervis Eared Willow (Salix aurita) + Dock-leaved Willow (Salix myrsinifolia) to produce Salix × forbesiana Dock-leaved Willow (Salix myrsinifolia) to produce Salix × strepida Dock-leaved Willow (Salix myrsinifolia) + Dock-leaved Willow (Salix myrsinifolia) to produce Salix × phylicifolia Creeping Willow (Salix repens) to produce Salix × subsericea There are also 13 triple hybrids, namely: Salix aurita × cinerea × phylicifolia Salix caprea × myrsinifolia × phylicifolia (Salix × phylicioides nom. nud.) Salix cinerea × myrsinifolia × phylicifolia Salix herbacea × myrsinifolia × phylicifolia Salix myrsinifolia × phylicifolia × repens Salix viminalis × cinerea × repens (Salix × angusensis) Salix myrsinifolia × phylicifolia × myrsinites (Salix × blyttiana) Salix caprea × cinerea × viminalis (Salix × calodendron) Salix cinerea × aurita × myrsinifolia (Salix × forbesiana) Salix cinerea × purpurea × viminalis Salix aurita × myrsinifolia × phylicifolia (Salix × saxetana) Salix purpurea × aurita × phylicifolia (Salix × sesquitertia) Salix aurita × caprea × viminalis with four of them being hybrids of Dark-leaved Willow (Salix myrsinifolia) and Tea-leaved Willow (Salix phylicifolia) with another Willow. These hybrids are not shown properly on the hybrid chart above, being partially over-lapped by normal hybrids with just two parents. There is also a one quadruple hybrid: Salix × taylorii (Salix purpurea × viminalis × caprea × cinerea) There are also five triple hybrids, namely: Salix cinerea × myrsinifolia × phylicifolia Salix herbacea × myrsinifolia × phylicifolia Salix repens × myrsinifolia × phylicifolia Salix caprea × myrsinifolia × phylicifolia Salix aurita × cinerea × phylicifolia with four of them being hybrids of Dark-leaved Willow (S. myrsinifolia) and Tea-leaved Willow (S. phylicifolia) with another Willow.

That's a Goat WIllow Salix caprea. The Grey S. cinerea has much narrower and smaller leaves.

If they died of Dutch Elm Disease the last thing you want to do is take them off site or even move the stuff around within the site.

Historic Scotland confirmed to me a couple of years ago that Listing does not protect trees. Even if they are in a CA or TPO, they're dead and therefore are not protected.

Looks like the common lichen Peltigeras horizontalis. Hurrah, another tree saved by the sharing of knowledge.

I'd say ANY form can be turned into an excel spreadsheet. I have turned all my forms into these or into Pocket GIS survey templates, which of course are output as csv fileds (=xls files). Maybe it's the climate up here in Scotland, but paper is the last thing I'd use. Tablets run excel or substitute programmes, and are almost disposably cheap. I just did a 1400 tree survey for a Council using a tablet that cost £60. I think it's generally a good thing to record the rationale for decisions, especially as a public body. But htat's maybe not by using a form but by using a system that aids and records objective decisions measurable agianst accepted standards. The ISA system is words based too loose and slushy for me personally. QTRA uses numbers, which I think for roadside risk assessments is more or less ideal. The QTRA manual has a suite of sample survey record forms in it.

What's the question?

What qualifications and experience do you have? And are you a Council employee?

Gary, will contact you again offline. We're in the realms of discussing strengths and weaknesses of a case in public.

Commendable tongue-biting! I had a similar experience of local government, the closer to the top you get the more unbearable the stench of bullshit gets. The most you can hope for is muted respect for not becoming the patsy of members and Directors. I'd go as far as to say that doing your job right in local government makes you a liability for managment because thy can't use your name to legitimise their duplicitous actions. I now have a good rapport (i think) with ex colleagues in that LA, and when they see that i am representing someone they know that what comes their way will have bene done properly and objectively. Reputation is sacred. I have turned down potential clients who wanted to use my reputation to support questionable proposals. I recnetly had dealings for a client with a TPO in that LA's area. The LA doesn't have a copy of the TPO, cannot say whether it was ever confirmed. I know the folk concerned, and there's no point giving them a hard time about it. The resultant advice to client was pragmatic rather than literal. As is so often the case. We know right from wrong, but that's not in the real world.

I'll join you in the dock. You'd win. Tell the head TO to come ahead if he thinks he's hard enough. Tell him to bring a dictionary and a text book on elementary english. And his mammy too.

I beleive the iTree software is based on CTLA. I have set my spreadsheet to deal with the hideous quadratic equation in the Trunk Formula Method, so it's all done automatically. You can have a play with it.

Good, well it's about time the LAs read the legislation for what is says. In fact, it gives an exception for prevention or abatement. To me as an english speaker it's plain tha the exception is there to allow someone to intervene before nuisance occurs. All arguments then about how bad the nuisance needs to be (actionable/self-abatable etc.) are nonsense. If you are allowed to prevent it, why woudl there be a gap between that and the dmage becoming so bad that you're being taken to court by a neighbour because of it. I am prepared to be quoted on it. The nuisance doesn't have to be actionable. It doesn't even need to exist. It just needs to be imminent and reasonably foreseeable and the remedy just needs to be enough to prevent or remove it.

You don't have to prove foreseeability, just raise the possibility (in other words, foresee it) with whatever evidence you have at the time. You may already have done enough in that regard. The damage doesn't just need to be to the owner's property, it could be to neighbouring property. But there's a horrible creaking door there, the legislation says compensation ignores what an owner shoudl have done to minimise the damage, and if the remedy of abatement is (as I am convinced it is) available then it should be exercised rather than relying on compensation for offsite damage. I hope that makes sense.

Piee of piss to calculate. LA will want CAVAT because it produces ridiculously high values. But remember, LA doesn't own the tree. See recent debate on UKTC on the raw inequity of using CAVAT to value TPO trees. You could try Helliwell, though it's pants too. I can run you through a CTLA 9th edition if yo want, ask me offline. I amn't putting my Excel CTLA and CAVAT calculators online.

Yes, as long as the original application contained sufficient grounds to allow the LA to reasonably foresee the damage.

Ooh, please explain! I only have Mynors 1st edition but in it he was drifting towards the interpretation that I now hold to be the only possible one. What was his latest take on it?

I would say that actionable nuisance should never be the only reason in an application. Parliament has given the exception, and it can and should be used rather than asking for a LA to exercise its discretion or interpret whether a legal nuisance exists. Perhaps what's really in mind is that use of the exception would either only hold back the tide for a while or would necessitate the removal of so many roots that the tree would die or fall over. In that case, it's a question of what it's reasonable to do. It could in certain circumstances be valid to remove the whole tree under exception on the basis that root removal is absolutely unnecessary and tha the tree will be dangerous thereafter, which is in itself a valid exception. It's back to the Perrin/Northampton sceabnario of alternative engineering solutions and whether their costs are unreasonable. How about a budget cost for a pile and beam rebuild and an amenity valuation side by side? That way you could quantify the disproportionate burden on the tree owner.

Gary, as you know, there is an exception in TPOs for the prevention or abatement of a nuisance. The damage appears to be substantial enough to be actionable, although in my opinion the wording of the legislation and the trend of court interpretation is that the nuisance doesn't even need to be actionable to be an appropriate use of the exception. I think it would be appropriate to include in your arsenal the 'so far as may be necessary' possibilities for abatement. That covers the neighbour's side. On the client's side the compensation rules would apply for a while after refusal, but only from the time of the application and only if the (further) damage was foreseeable. There was a thread on here a couple of months ago when a similar physical circustance was looked at, and a piles + ground beam solution looked possible to support a replacement wall. Expensive? No doubt. Possible? Almost certainly. Fair? Well... It all seems a bit unfair, but the tree would have done the damage anyway and the TPO is only a retrospective cosntraint on the solutions available. I think the species susceptibility to DED is a red herring, if anything it creates a scarcity value that might even bolster the LA's grounds for refusal. All a bit negative towards your cleint's position, but it's a perspective anyway.

Nimby, what bit doesn't make sense? There's not a lot of guesswork, except a bit of speculation as to what the whole story might be.

The feed got jammed and he shoved the brash with his foot. It then started again.

Er, no! HSE and a court hammered someone a few years ago after a groundie was pulled into a chipper and had his foot taken off. The stop bar didn't work. The contractor had plans to get it fixed, but didn't. Stickers don't bring limbs back. Get it fixed.

I agree it's not an issue for a purchaser. It should be enough to record the conditin of all trees present at the date of entry. What could be interesting, though (and I've never encountered this) is if the Council prosecuted the previous owner for removal or destruction of a tree and insisted on replanting. If the previous owner no longer had access to the land and hadn't reserved the right for this purpose in the contact of sale, would the replanting obligation be enforceable on the new owner? Since the (English ) Act says " it shall be the duty of the owner of the land to plant another tree of an appropriate size and species at the same place as soon as he reasonably can. " I expect the answer might be yes. A contract to purchase would normally contain a emchanism for the purchaser to seek redress agains the seller, even (especially) after entry. Not guaranteed, though.

I suppose it is is just part of the inherent unfairness of TPOs in the hands of the wrong Council. You could identify a hazard that' progressively getting worse, with an immovable target like the bungalow and the apprehensive occupants within it every night, but the Council might still prosecute for less than urgent risk reduction, or for harm less than serious. And the plain meaning of 'harm' excludes 'damage', (which is dealt with by way of foreseeable damage and compensation). So a Council might just say 'get some insurance'. The compensation cover only lasts for a short while, meaning that if damage wasn't foreseeable at time of application, you need to keep re-applying to keep the compensation rights from increasing foreseeability of damage alive. Is it not just a case of what an Inspector would consider at appeal to be disproportionate negative effects ion the tree owner relative to positive public amenity? Tempered by brinksmanship around the 'damage' and 'harm' thersholds if the Council's being a bit James Blunt about it? I hvae had clients on the end of some really really dismal decisions, I pretty much advise now that they count application time as part of a delay process on the way to a sensible decision at appeal, with an approval meantime being a bonus. Councils vary, though, as to individual TOs and DCOs. I recently had a case where the tree was not bad enough for the harm exception and not foreseeable enough for the damage one but it was approved based on my argument that reduction would considerably extend the tree's safe useful life. It can be persuasive.