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daltontrees

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Everything posted by daltontrees

  1. daltontrees
    Would it be fair to say that the area in the foreground of the 2nd photo has been excavated for a landscaped garden? If so, there's the cause. Fungus looks saprpphytic.
  2. daltontrees
    Can anyone help out with this please? Looks like a very overgrown shrub.
  3. daltontrees
    That's clear. No possibility whatsoever of subsidence. I can't really add anything to Gary Prentice's suggestions, thye seem to be as much as you can do. The damage to the building may be a result of setlement or shortcomings of building design or execution.
  4. daltontrees
    Quite right to point out the different law regimes, but please note the rules are substantially different up here now especially with removal of the 5 cube exemption for native species. See above my reply to OP, I don't think it's clear-cut that there's not much of a problem.
  5. daltontrees
    The Forestry Commission no longer exists in Scotland, it has been replaced by a government agency. The Forestry Act has been repealed, and so the rules and exemptions don't apply. We have a new Act and a separate set of Regulations. The rules are a little simpler than before. There is an exemption for 5 cu.m. a quarter. Also for trees in a 'garden'. No definition of 'garden'. But the 5 cube exemption is withdrawn if the trees are a native woodland. From the plan and aerial photo, I'd say you need to be cautious, the trees are more than just part of a garden and look to be substantially native species within a small woodland. In other words (if I'm right) you cannot fell anything without a license. If it's not urgent, ask Scottish Forestry. You don't want to be their first prosecution.
  6. daltontrees
    The spil type may not be relevant to subsidence, the underlying geology is. You can have loamy, chalky soils on shrinkable clays, although it's unlikely. COul dhte OP check the BGS site http://mapapps.bgs.ac.uk/geologyofbritain3d/index.html and tell us what the 'bedrock' gelology is?
  7. daltontrees
    hey look like mini mini brackets rather than a crust. Better pics needed.
  8. daltontrees
    Thanks Gary. The abuse of the appeal process to buy extra time is only good if it ends up as an approval, otherwise the Council has a deemed refusal to defend and and actual refusal with reasons. Even an approval could be appealed is the conditions are considered unacceptable. These several years of austerty and cutbacks and disappearance of TOs has left Councils shameless about not delivering even statutory service turnarounds.
  9. daltontrees
    Only time I ever wore one was when surveying trees on a local golf course. My survey method statement says that a tree is not approached until it has been looked over from a safe distance for obvious hazards. Climbing inspections are another matter. And while on that subject, I recently was asked to provide £5M public liability insurance for climbing surveys (£800 p.a.). Since I don't have PLI for any ther reason I told the client that I would take the job on if he paid the premium on top of my fee. He gave in.
  10. daltontrees
    8 + 27 = 35 weeks. 8 months. Quite frankly ridiculous. Is there any reason why a Council can't determine an application after appeal and have the appeal withdrawn (assuming it's an approval)? Last time I threatened a non-determination appeal the TO went out to it the next day and approved it the day after that. Appeals in Scotland rarely take more than 3 months, usually only 2. I've never seen an appeal against non-determination. TPOs seems to be rarer up here though.
  11. daltontrees
    Yes we are mixing terminology for two related things (i) All confirmed TPOs must be kept available for inspection (but not necessarily inthe form of a 'register' (ii) All TPO applications must be available for inspection in a public register. So to clarify my ealrier comments, I mean that the non-availability of a TPO for inspection, free of charge, at all reasonable hours, at the offices of the planning authority by whom the tree preservation order was made, is a breach of Regulations, both sides of the border, and that Mynors alludes to this being a defence against prosecution.
  12. daltontrees
    The damage is already done. Best not to do anything else on site without the Council's agreement. Meantime, grovel.
  13. daltontrees
    I recently visited Highland Council's offices and insisted on seeing a TPO. There wqs no Register, but they jumped thrugh hoops to get me the info. Eventually. Ditto East Renfrewhsire. It doens't have a register. There's a related issue, and it's importance varies between Scotland and England. Knowing the existence or even extent of a TPO is not enouhg, as the contents of Orders is not stnadard. Just to makr absoultely certain that no-one can assume what a TPo contains, the Scvottish Parliament revoked the Regulations that contained the TPO pro-forma, and replaced them with a Model Order which is not mandatory. Worse still, up here the exemptions are in the Act, not in the new Regs. England does it the other way around.
  14. daltontrees
    If you read the article you may conclude that CAVAT makes little or no attempt to measure the environmental benefits from trees. It's an accounting exercise for trees as assets and an optimistic starting point for compensation for tree loss or damage. Helliwell makes no effort to value environmental benefits. itree eco makes an effort.
  15. daltontrees
    I've put the Council on notice to that effect, but mainly to incentivise it to get its act (or should that be Act) together. On the basis of Jo Heuch's pertinent observation that no copy of confirmed TPO means no enforcement, that could be right. On the other hand, the Council may have confirmend and recorded the TPOs but can't or won't get a copy form Sasines unless it is contemplating a prosecution. So what I have done instead is told the Council that if I or a client try to find out if there is a TPO on a tree only by visiting the Council office and asking to see the register, then no register entry means no enforceable TPO. I think there is some allusion to this defence in Mynors.
  16. daltontrees
    I'm going to stick my neck out and add that I don't think public access to TPOs comes under the Environmental Information Regulations because it is prescribed separately, predating the EIR by 14 years down there.
  17. daltontrees
    I've had a quick look at tthe decision. Looks like the Council refused a FoI request correctly on the basis that the info was available as 'environmental' info by another established process at its office. The decision arrived at a criticism of how much the Council charged for the information rather than that it wrongly refused FoI or wrongly made charges. The amount was just too much. I had this recently at a Council who wanted to charge a very large amount for a print-out of a planning permission or any part of it. I visited the office instead and got the whole file for free on my memory stick.
  18. daltontrees
    I have been on the receiving end of this. "Reasonably accessible" doesn't have to mean free, nor does it have to mean available from the Council. Anyone (but usually conveyancers) can obtain land charges information for a fee from the Land Registry. I would expect a Council to reject such a request. I amn't aware of that case, I'll have a look.
  19. daltontrees
    There's a FoI exemption for "Information which is reasonably accessible to the applicant otherwise than" under an FoI request. So if land charges can be obtained by a conventional public process (free or otherwise), an FoI could be refused.
  20. daltontrees
    My local Council (South lanarkshire Council) has admitted it has no copies of its TPOs before 1996. They're all delineated in the Local Plan but no paperwork. An area of 1,800km2.
  21. daltontrees
    I just re-read the OP. The brick wall is on an old sandstone footing. That explains the lack orf resistanc eto movement of the wall and the legth of wall affected by the movement. I withdraw my suggestion fo a concrete beam. It's too late for that. It probably needs a lot of wall and footings removed, mini-piles inserted wherever possible between roots and a ground beam cast on top then rebuild wall. The LPA may well be in the compensation zone and the approval may partly be a refelction of that.
  22. daltontrees
    We could bring down the government by getting Trump to project manage the building of the wall...
  23. daltontrees
    I expect there are privacy and conservation area reasons for not doing the fence or railing solution which is in all other respects really the obvious choice. And perceived value of tree to its owners versus costs of solution. Removing the tree won't fix the wall, either, so there's possibly goung to be building work anyyway, and it's the extra cost of work due to retaining the tree that needs to go into the equation.
  24. daltontrees
    Interesting and useful experience, thanks
  25. daltontrees
    I am assuming he means a 'challenge' under s.288 of the validity of an Order on point of law.

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