daltontrees

Thanks, true, but it doesn't protect the emplyer because, as the HSE guidance says "If your insurer believes that you have failed to meet your legal responsibilities for the health and safety of your employees and that this has led to the claim, the policy may enable the insurer to sue you to reclaim the cost of the compensation." The requirement to insure comes from the '69 Act, and the prohibition on not paying out comes from Regulations in 1984. And so it appears that the condition contained in the model ELI policy published by Sun General Insurance I looked at last night is either unlawful or voidable. I suppose the legislation makes sense as it should be there to encourage the prevention of accidents and to compensate employees. But when the dust settles, the outcome would be the same, employee does not need to sue to get compensated, instead insurer sues employer to get the money back.

I wouldn't bet on it. What I posted last night was taken from the model conditions of ELI insurance from a household name insurer in the UK. It clearly says that if you don't comply with conditions like H&S, the insurer doesn't have to pay out. Car insurance may be different.

Ditto, thought there was a ring. But still not convinced of Pholiota. Hopefully someone who knows will come along and save us all.

What is a 'system audit' scenario? If you have responsibility of the actions or omissions of this organisation, you are exposed. Pointing out their deficiiencies could or could not be enough to remove your exposure to a claim by one of their employees, but only for a short while. Standard stuff in ELI is the insurer indemnified insured against injury compensation claims from employees, but it is also standard that insurer shall take reasonable precautions to prevent accidents and disease and shall comply with all statutory obligations. It is also standard that the due observance and fulfillment of the terms of the policy in so far as they relate to anything to be done or not to be done by the Insured shall be conditions precedent to any liability of the Company to make any payment under this Policy. What that means is, the insurance is worthless if the insured hasn't complied with H&S basics, and the insurer won't pay out. So if there is a H&S deficiency and an employee is injured without contributory negligence by him, the employee sues successfully, liability is established, the insurer ducks and the employer has to pay up. His directors will probably be liable personally, and so might anyone having collective responsibility. H&S legislation, aparallel but separate matter, is there to encourage the prevention of accidents and to punish failures to look after employees. ELI is instead there to protect the employer and to some degree the employees. What it is not is a viable alternative to looking out for them. Depending what your 'system audit' scenario is, you may not have the option just to get peeved about this, and reporting to the co to HSE would not be a substitute for putting fresh air between you and them (legally, that is). Oh and not being in any of their dodgy workplaces, from a personal wellbeing perspective.

If anything the sightly decurrent gills and stem ring are reminiscent of Armillaria. .

All the common Pholiota have attached gills but never decurrent. If anything they're sinuate. So Id' say these ones possibly aren't Pholiota.

Yes, looks like a straight A. davidii.

Erm.. no. Cones are upward, ruling out Spruce, and very much ruling in Fir. Needles are too flat to roll between the fingers, ruling out Spruce. Flush, round needle scars, ruling out Spruce (peg attachment). That light bark is not like Spruce either. All in all, with bracts visible, and all other diagnostic features, I'd say it was a planted-out Nordmann (Fir) christmas tree. Could have got a few bob for the crown if you'd held off for a few weeks.

The law doesn't begin and end with the High Court and s.284., and with England. I am certain that the superior courts would take a case that had sufficient prima facie prejudice and ultra vires. The cases you cite pre-date the latest court rules, but that's stil not the point. It would not be in society's iterest to allow a situation to arise where someone has surrered loss beccause a staturory body has wilfully or negligently failed to exercise its powers correctly. The law never stands still. Denning was famous for being unhappy about the inadequacies of law, and often codified law in written judgements. He virtually wrote the law of CPO compensation single handedly, and in my former life as a surveyor I held his written judgemnets as the clearest and most logical deerivations of scant and often inadequate statute. His rantings in case law are partly what triggered the current statutory position for judicial review. But I bet if Denning was still around he'd now caveat his previous position along the lines of what I've said above. The remedy (or even the action) might not be to have a TPO set aside, but the wronged owner would get some kind of redress. Your 6 weeks is not the end of it. It's just the end of the High Court. In England. For now. I could have got by without your last paragraph, but now that you mention it, when statutes contain mistakes, who plugs the gaps? The courts. They are reluctant to interfere with the exercise of statutory discretion, but they never stand by when potentially endemic unfairness emerges. Thus the judiciary is actively involved in helping and making the law evolve. I have more faith in them than I have in Parliament.

Might be Betula x aurata, the hybrid between Silver and Downy Birch. Definitely leaves are too rounded to be pendula, but the bar is too rugged to be pubescens. I see these hybrids quite often, they really are halfway between Silver and Downy, in every way.

Spore..k?

Cheek! I don't know, there was no agreement. Non sawmill and non-brash, everything stackable in between? The stuff I like because you can usually get away with not having to split it.

I expect our disagreement on this comes from a difference between scottish law and English. The appeal court in Scotland is the Court of Session. We have similar substantive and procedural Ultra Vires tests grounds for appeal against a TPO. In both Scotland and England the 6 weeek period stars from when the Order is confirmed, but clearly if the owner or intersted party was not advised of the confirmation of the Order, there would be procedural Ultra Vires and the right of appeal would subsist beyond the 6 week period. In England I really don't know if it would be taken by the High Court or by the Court of Appeal, since the High Court woud have no statutory basis to take it. Whichever court took it, I hope it's clear that since it would be the interested party's first appeal, it could be made on either procedural or substantive grounds, and if it were the Court of Appeal, the matter could be deferred to the High Court to deal with the substantive issues. The Law Commision's review of these sorts of rules in 1994 neither ruled in or ruled out the need for a Court of Appeal appeal (whether in the aforegoing scenario or otherwise), but if there was a public interest to be served a common law natural justice appeal would I expect and hope be accepted. One must always remember that the actions of courts can be the subject of appeal, and quite rightly, because they can and occasionally do interpret and apply the law incorrectly. Perhaps partly because of this moot point, Mynors (1st edition) mentions that the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 allowed appeals only if the High Court gives permission, thus satisfying the public interest aspect. As the 1st edition suggests, I believe this has been replaced by changes to the Rules of the Supreme Court. I haven't followed this up, sincerely hoping never to need to know the nitty gritty. And back to the beginning, the Court of Session in Scotland is the statutory court of appeal in the first instance but may (in the inner house) also take a natural justice appeal of the type I am referring to or any other breach of natural justice or the questioning of the validity of an appeal decision in the outer house. Clear as mud! In noted in passing an error in the english Regulations, Regulation 8(a)(iii) refers to s.284(a), I think it should be s.284(1). Just goes to show, even statutory laws can be flawed. So, a TPO could be challenged after the 6 weeks, if the High Court (or Court of Session?) was unsure of its interpretation, or if the Order had not been served correctly.

Indeed, indeed... It's really simple. A Cord is a volume of wood. Cordwood is a type of wood. Cordwood may or not be sold by the Cord. Trying to link the definitions of Cord and Cordwood just because they both have 'Cord' in them seems, beyond that, pointless.

I reckon some praise is due to Edward C for taking the time to set out the situation clearly. It's as good a treatise as I have seen anywhere on the internet. As for axe-grinding, that's irrelevant and distracting. The law is the law. But there's a wee clarification due. It's true the validity of an Order can only be challenged in the High Court, namely challenges of the lawfulness of the processes followed on making the Order. But that's not the end of it. A TPO can be challended on judicial review, rare and expensive and risky as this may seem. The Council's actions are subject, like everythign else they do, to common law rules of natural justice, and if they have made an Order based on no evidence or the decision to make the Order is was unreasonable or if spurious and irrelevant factors have been taken into account and swayed the decision to make an Order which otherwise wouldn't have ben made, a challenge may succeed. There is theoretically no time limit for a judicial review. The odds are stacked in favour of the Council only insofar as raising a judicial review is a hideously expensive business. Up here in Scotland challenges on planning appeal decisions are not at all uncommon, but there's usually £millions of development value at stake. Awards of expenses usually follow success, but not always, and not always completely. It's a bit of an expensive gamble. Would-be litigants must provide their own salt.

I think the etymology of quintal is from the word 'cent-' meaning hundred, rahtehr than 'quint-' menaing five. If you remember those teeny wee Fiats called the 500, pronounced 'seeng-co-chen-tay', the chen-tay it is hundred, and the pronounciation of it is a lot more like quinte than the 'seeng-co' bit is. The first guy that paid for an imperial quintal and got a metric one must have been well pleased. It's basically twice as big.

Costa Teguise, Lanzarote.

That's the point. Is it wilfiul? As I see it, if the intention is to mount a camera rahter than to damage or destroy a tree, and you have taken reasonable precautions to minimise damage and to make the damage incidental to the purpose of the installation, I cna't see how it can damage the public amentiy that the tree provides. There shouldn't therefore be a case for prosecution.

This was done almost to death recently on the UKTC forum. Almost. There are ways of attaching things to trees that do minimal damage and ways that do a whole lot of damage. The question is, is the damage wilful? If you could do it in a way that would cause minimal damage, do it that way. If you know how to do ity that way but you choose to do it badly or a worse way, theres a weak legal argument that says you could be prosecuted. If you do it badly, knowing it is going to damage a tree, you're a bad person and a prosecution might stick because it's (a) wilful and (b) damage. Strap it on, and adjust it as the tree expands. If not, bolt it on with alloy or galvanised fixings that allow the fitting to move as the tree grows.

Dunno if this counts for this section of the site.

Poole, Dorset, the same place as R v Davey when a guy was fined £150k in 2013 for felling a TPO'd pine. Ahh, the power of court decisions to deter others from offending! Looks like Poole is the new capital of conifer mullering and tree-owner twattery.

Yeah, it's about £150. My local library has access to British Standards online, you can look at them and copy the odd page if the ibrarian allows it for study purposes. Surely you can't be expected to comment on an expensive copyright document unless it is available for study somewhere? The only bit I've ever needed has been this. Some of this info is in BS8545.

I realise where you're coming from now, having addressed the generalities on this question recently on UKTC. So my answer is, 'yes'. Indeed, lots and lots of examples. To recap, the 5837 context is that structures should be "located outside the RPAs of trees to be retained. However, where there is an overriding justification for construction within the RPA, technical solutions might be available that prevent damage to the tree(s)... If operations within the RPA are proposed, the project arboriculturist should a) demonstrate that the tree(s) can remain viable and that the area lost to encroachment can be compensated for elsewhere, contiguous with its RPA; b) propose a series of mitigation measures to improve the soil environment that is used by the tree for growth." And as I said before, It seems to me that it is for the designer to justify incursions and for the arb to say that the consequences for the tree are or could be OK. But this is not law, nor is it planning policy, unless the Council has said that it will apply BS5837 literally and inflexibly in all cases. Which it can never say, because 5837 is not a public instrument. So, the numerous examples I know of involve an overriding justification of "if those trees are being kept, the development can't be built unless it encroaches on the RPAs." It's a very simple justification by the client and designer. It's then for the planning authority, if there is an application, to decide whether that is acceptable in planning terms. The question is then, are the trees important for the amenity of the area (TPOable) or for the context of the development? And if the answer is yes, the Council could justifiably refuse the application unless the arboriculturist has demonstrated that the trees would be OK. I hope it's clearer now. The designer can easily justify encroachment on an RPA by saying that the project won't be possible otherwise. The Council has to apply a different set of tests that are largely about public amenity and are nothing to do with the designer's criteria. So do I know examples of applications that have gone in that involve encroachment into the RPA of trees that the client isn't proposing to remove? Lots and lots. Examples of where the Council has then approved the application anyway because it did not value the trees for public amenity? Almost as many. And a few where it has approved subject to conditions about root protection, without having asked for a tree report up-front. In your case, if the Council has already said that it values the trees and would refuse an application that damaged them to an unacceptable degree, then it's a straight conflict between designer justification for encroachment (it's that or else nothing) and Council justification for refusal (preservation of public amenity). Does one override the other? Don't look to 5837 to answer that, because it doesn't. It doesn't even try, nor should it, because it's about trees not about planning policy.

Also worth consiering Capsid bugs, as they have a wide host range. Weevil damage is usually along the leaf margin rather htan the centre of leaves.

Don't use spikes. Use a cambium saver or go SRT if you think there will be significant rope wear on any anchor points. Otherwise I don't see how you can damage a tree wilfully by climbing it.