ferdinand2000

a good way for fools or untrained people like me to kill themselves quickly :-). I hope he RTFMs (reads the f* manual). As an amateur I use an electric round the garden and copse. It says 1700W and 12m/s chain speed. It was a Bosch, at about £100. I don't see the point of an Aldi chainsaw for about £40-£50, when he could get one from a place which knows more about powertools for double that. It's much smoother than I expected when I started using one. The point that made me take note on maintenance was how seriously my local hire places take it - a new chain and guide bar after every day, and it costs as much to hire as to buy a new electric saw. I admit to being a bit obsessed about keeping my fingers. The stories I read about people up ladders cutting bits off trees at 30-40ft to save £100 for a pro leave me cold. But then I don't like heights very much. Ferdinand

The problem is that unsupported it will be weakened. I'd do a few basic things to shake it all up and make the local more important. I'd shift most control for local stuff from communities of 100k to those of around 10k, more like the French, and big up the role of Parish and District Councils. A classic example here was Oswestry (abolished by the Ginger Nut) which used to have local parking control, so you paid your 60p for your parking, and your ticket at the Town Hall when you forgot (this is 2006 or so), which was then replaced by a County Wide service and a call centre. I'd make councils raise 50%+ of their income locally (with an equivalent national reduction), which would double or treble Council Tax overnight, and make people a *lot* more interested. And I'd try and make local variation acceptable - which would be difficult to achieve in the face of so many universal "rights" and globally set legal decisions. In my book it is OK for area B to decide to have better coastal defence or schools in exchange for higher local taxes. Postcode lotteries are cool. ...except where you are mandated to be officious under threat of Statutory Penalty by those areas of the law drawn up by dipsticks and loons who are addicted to micro-control from a great height using the "pigeon" technique. Or perhaps you ignore it :-) Cheers F

Cheers for the reply Tony. Sorry for my delay in replying. Having spent a few years working in local govt in IT, and having seen at least 2 IT Departments decimated (lost >a third of staff in months) because of "national agreements" forcing down salaries and making staff leave to places paying market rates, and a Council with all innovation frozen for about 3 years because it was awaiting abolition and staff were self-protecting, for my money the first stuff that needs cutting is the machinery micromanaging local stuff from a national level, so I'd abolish most of that for a start. 25% over 5 years is a fairly modest reduction imo - private industry does that time after time. My basic position is that if a resource/department/job is not needed if the work can be done more efficiently, then it is basically maladministration to keep them in place. Then I'd start abolishing County Councils ... ;-) . On the new TPO system post Trees in Towns, there are some dreadful aspects. The directive which makes it illegal for TOs to even consider a form which isn't filled in to the last dot and tittle makes me understand partly why a more informal form can be necessary. Don't start me on the transfer of cost from local councils to Tree Owners, which was hidden in the totals of the impact assessment before the legislation came in. Rgds Ferdinand

Lots of good advice on the thread. It's good that you caught it only 6 days after it was registered. Serious question: Are you sure that you don't have a contract with them to provide online advertising? This looks like part of such a contract. The reason for the domain is probably because "hyperlocal" is all the internet rage and they are trying to target "tree care se18" on Google. They may ostensibly be doing it as part of your yell.com listing. A domain like that will have cost a couple of pounds if that, so they must expect some return. You could get them for Trademark violation unless there's something in an agreement you may have with yell. The way to tackle it is an email, as you are planning, to yell. If you need to complain, the regulator for .co.uk is Nominet (Nominet) not ICANN. I can't imagine that you would have any problems winning. Their complaints page is here: Nominet - Disputes/Legal The contact email and tel for the Dispute Resolution Team are: Telephone: 01865 332211 Email: [email protected] Rgds Ferdinand

Just spotted, Havant have a form which you can fill in to find out whether it is worth filling in the whole enchilada umpteen page real form to request to do work on a TPO tree :-). "Tree Request Form Works to a tree in a Conservation Area or subject to a Tree Preservation Order (enquiry form) Please use this form to enquire as to whether you would be likely to gain permission to carry out proposed works to a tree that is either subject to a Tree Preservation Order or is within a Conservation Area. Please note that this is not an application form - see the section below." Here: http://www.havant.gov.uk/PDF/TREE%20REQUEST%20FORM.pdf The real one is described thus: "Tree Works Application Form Works to a tree in a Conservation Area or subject to a Tree Preservation Order (applications form) This form is for consent for works to trees subject to a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) and/or notification of proposed works to trees in conservation areas Please make sure you read the Guide and Checklist documents below to ensure you supply all the relevant information required for us to consider the application." Wonderful. Roll on the 25% cuts. Ferdinand

Sounds like you have a "conservationist" with an attack of mad TPO disease and no imagination :-). Someone's been told "replace them" and has forgotten how quickly costs escalate with size, and is scared to do something sensible because they'll be responsible for it. Why Europaea? Do they *want* to drip honeydew on cars? What's wrong with 7-8m? They'll grow back in a few years. Ferdinand

... and to "habitable" rooms. F

One deterrent is threats of Planning Appeals, perhaps? In the Reading case I quoted on the other thread, that was in the mix if you dig down to the correspondence. F

Look good, but - my one qu - could they have been wheelchair accessible wrt height of at least one viewing window, or is the site innaccessible? F

>medical You are clear on that, aren't you. I have Type I diabetes and that adds certain restrictions, for example. Ferdinand

I think that was the Council being a little creative - no indication of TPOs or anything. I'm more interested in why they are enforcing 40-50cm girth on developments, when their own policy is small trees unless they are vulnerable to vandals when they will use semi-mature. It is not achieving maximum utility for the cash. Their policy aim is to maximise tree cover development in Reading and they have some ideas about their trees compensating for CO2 emissions (Heh - significant input with a few thousand trees :-). If that's the idea they should be asking for 20-25cm trees at about a fifth of the cost, which will grow as big in just a few years, and then asking for the rest of the cash to go on replacing street trees the Council has decided it can't afford - or to spend the 20k or 30k saved to establishing 20 or 30 acres of woodland for 5 years (excl. land cost :-) or 2 or 3 acres including land. Just my thoughts. Ferdinand

Some LAs are going slightly bonkers with planning conditions, and the client probably has to supply a 5 year maintenance agreement too. See this one for Reading, on a site for about 15 houses. http://www.reading.gov.uk/documents/committee_services/planning_applications_committee/070404/item15cockneyhillpacapril07.pdf "The approved landscape scheme included 23 semi-mature trees (40-50cm girth, 8-10m high) to compensate for the trees removed prior to the submission of a planning application." The total tree cost was something like 50k, though that included about 100m of 'instant wildlife hedge', and some of the "semi-mature trees" were slightly too small. I think it's quite sad (and funny) - trees being taken out because they are 35-40cm rather than 40-50cm. F

I'm not sure where to put this, so... I'm looking for about a skipload of wood/bark chippings (i.e., not too much greenery in the mix) to do around 100 sqm of garden. Its difficult estimating (or measuring) the quantity, but I reckon it is a standard 7 cubic m skip-full or a little more. Is there anyone in the area who could supply for an appropriate price, or has a job in the area in the next couple of weeks where you would drop them off straight away? Getting this quantity is a bit horrific via Wickes or B&Q. It is for a new tenant just doing over a garden so I'd pass the details on. She paved 200sqm last week for dog compounds, and now wants to do start the garden. We are near J28 on the M1 - Sutton-in-Ashfield/Alfreton area. Access is easy - we had someone deliver 20 tons of sand for the paving with no problems a couple of weeks ago. (Suggestion to management - would it be worth having a "wants" forum to take out the middlemen and let members get a bit of business? Perhaps even take a small commission?). Could you post here or PM me if you can help? Thanks Ferdinand

Thanks for the pics so far, guys. Now I'm off to my editing suite. F

They strip the bark to get at the cambium underneath, which carries nutrients the squirrels can use. Species (e.g., oak, sycamore), times of year where nutrient flow are at a maximum (which means, I think, the summer growth period), and the maturity of tree (bigger than saplings to have a decent flow but small enough not to have very thick bark) mark out the common targets. Hence optimal squirrel control is before the growth period and before there of are loads of little squirrels everywhere. I haven't seen data on whether bark stripping is a problem in the spring growth period as well as the summer period. I'm guessing it is less because squirrels have not exploded their population that early. F

Not photos, but I came across this 2008/9 paper. "Summary Grey squirrel damage was monitored annually in a stand of naturally regenerating oak in the Forest of Dean, UK, between 1998 and 2003. Incidences of damage and wound size were signifi cantly related to tree size, with dominant oak trees and those above 7.5 cm diameter at breast height, most at risk of damage on the main stem. Fresh damage occurred on 9 – 38 per cent of trees each year, with 2 – 17 per cent of trees ring barked in any year. Damage was concentrated above 4 m up the main stem and for some trees led to dieback and loss of apical dominance accompanied by a reduction in top height increment. Continuing damage is likely to lead to a general reduction in yield of the stand. As with other species, tree diameter and dominance appear to be useful predictors of bark-stripping damage risk on oak." This is a direct link to the PDF. Influence of tree size and dominance on incidence of bark stripping by grey squirrels to oak and impact on tree growth Ferdinand

Thanks very much for those, guys. Any more for any more? Ferdinand

Thanks for those so far. This is an action vid (squirrel shredding tree) from the Forest of Dean which I ran across. [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LM1TMsNnF98]YouTube - Grey Squirrel Bark Stripping[/ame] F

I'm not a fan of Dick the Dawk. To do it in a nutshell, I guess I would point to 3 things: 1 - The number public apologies he has to issue after getting too enthusiastic in his rhetoric; they number in the dozens. 2 - He engages in witch-hunts, which do nothing to further public debate. I'd point to his part in hounding Rev Michael Reiss out of his role at the Royal Society for basically suggesting that creationism should be dealt with by educating people out of it rather than launching denunciations. 3 - That his approach to religion is to deliberately not study the subject, floccipaucinihilipilificate it, and then expect anyone to listen to what he has to say. That's not a very rational approach. I don't think he's a particularly good scientist, either. His publication record relies quite heavily on reviews and compiling summaries of others' work. The public profile has come from pop-science books and being a good polemicist. 'Tis enough to drive anyone to faith . [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaGgpGLxLQw]YouTube - Richard Dawkins - Beware the Believers[/ame] F

Sorry for a silly question, but how do I embed Youtube? The obvious ways don't work in preview. Ferdinand

If you PM me the planning app number and *exact* wording of the condition, I'll have a quick look. F

I'm doing a short vid of damage by Grey Squirrels. Does anyone have any pics (or point me to any pics) I can use, please? I'm especially looking for serious bark damage, including branches in crowns stripped on the topside or ring-barked, and also domestic damage of wires, cable, plastic pipes etc. I'll post it here first when done. Thanks for any help. Ferdinand

This is a large Black Italian Poplar, which has been in the family since the 1920s. Not a tremor at present, but I'm not looking forward to the costs of taking it down when that eventually happens. It's good to have it there in the meantime, though. The motorway size lamppost is because it used to be a trunk route and every so often it used to be cut back by the LA to more or less the pavement line. For the detail-mongers, she's holding a paint brush because I pulled her off painting the shed to be a comparison :-). The road is a good illustration of the defensive/negative nature of the TPO setup - in a road of perhaps 400 houses, only a dozen or so have decent sized trees left. All the rest have been removed over the years, and some of the remaining ones have been TPO'd, so those who left them alone are stuck with the continuing costs of providing amenity, and who will allow any more to grown big? I would not let a tree that size near my garden now, unless the garden was huge or until the regime changes. Ferdinand

I'm not sure what scale (quantity) you are looking at, and if you want purchase, planting or maintenance costs, but I got as far as deciding it was too expensive for me. This place: Naturefirst says about 1k for planting all-in a 30cm *girth* tree (half of cost is plant hire) or £3.5k for 10. Here the quantity saving is on the service not the tree. It's a useful web page, laying out their detailed costs and suggesting a 90%+ success rate. I love that they compare size for the layman to "golf ball", "tennis ball", "football". Tree Size Guide - Trees graded by the girth For something a foot in dameter? Better to be selling them than buying them, methinks. Ferdinand.

If you're going that route then just restore from the full backup you took last week ;-). Or if you are on Windows XP you can go back to a recent "Restore Point", if it is set up to use them. See Programs -> Accessories -> System Tools -> System Restore. F