oslac

Bats along with Great Crested Newts are the gods of protected species. You need a license to even sniff them. Harm a nesting bird . . slap on wrist. Harm a bat and spend the rest of your life in hell.

My understanding of this is that if you disturb a bat roost, injure a bat etc. it would be for the court to show that it was an intentional or wreckless act. However . . . Carrying out works in a woodland and then saying I had no intention to disturb the bats (also noise may disturb bats therefor chainsaw works in close proximity to a bat roost may also be an offence) is likely to be viewed with a dim light by the local magistrate as bats are known to live in trees within woodlands and therefore a tree surgeon who carries out tree work contracts should be aware of the legislation and aware that a PEA or bat roost survey should be carried out if for no other reason than to discharge their responsibility towards bats and the law surrounding bats.

No, all is cool. We are forever up against the client, contractor, tree officer, case officer and every other consultee under the sun and although it is difficult, I try to understand where each party is coming from and then tell everyone what they don't want to hear. They quite often see me as the bad guy but I see my role as navigating complicated projects to a sucessful conclusion and quite often that means that everyone needs to compromise and I need to take a few hits on the chin. Mind you, I love my job.

That may well be. And I doubt that the LA dude can require an eco report but he could serve a TPO and could stick his nose in, after the event, and try to determine if any protected habitat was damaged. Lets hope the contractor is very sure that no bat roosts or other protected habitat or species is harmed.

A section 211 notice is all that is required to give notice to the council that you want to carry out works to trees within a CA and the council may, if they see fit, serve a TPO. The issue here though is about protected species and protected habitats. If on your mission to remove trees, you happen to disturb a bat roost or a bat, you will be committing a criminal offence. The council has asked for an eco report. No doubt the council specifically requires a Preliminary Ecological Assessment report (PEA) previously known as a phase 1 survey (see my previous comment). If there is no potential for bats or other protected species, then there can be no reason to stop you from felling trees unless it is expedient to serve a TPO but if the PEA identifies the potential for bats (or any other protected species) then you will be required to carry out a bat roost assessment and possibly other assessments as well. If bats are found and the need to fell trees is still there and the council hasn't served a TPO, you will require mitigation to safely move the bats. It may seem a pain for some (especially after reading some of the comments on here where it appears that bats are no more than a nuisanace) but that is the law and you would be wise to obey the law. Ecologist are not the enemy and to think of them as such is to miss the point but remember, they are also constrained by the law and have to follow strict guidelines.

Any ecologist carrying out a PEA (Preliminary Ecological Assessment) is usually very highly trained and I doubt very much that anyone without a degree and further training in protected species could write an eco report which has any value. The PEA is only an initial report. If the potential for any protected species are identified, then further presence/absence surveys will be required and depending on the results of that round of surveys, mitigation may also be required. All very expensive but this area is governed by European legislation and should great crested newts or bats turn up, anyone would be in serious trouble should they disturb their habitat and handle the little blighters without a licence.

PII normally needs to extend 6 years beyond the survey to cover future negligence claims although claims for injury may extend a further three years beyond this time. This won't be a problem if you intend to carry on surveying trees but when you retire a six year run off insurance will be required. If you work for someone, they should hold the PII but if you act as a sub-consultant, freelancer or whatever you may call yourself, you will be required to take out the insurance along with public liability and possibly employer's liability insurance. All tree surveys should be time limited and probably two years would be a sensible limit although depending on the type of survey and condition of tree, this may be a longer or shorter period. I doubt very much if the surveyor could be held negligent beyond this two year limit but the law is a strange thing and strange things happen. As mentioned earlier on the thread, this survey could probably be carried out at a level two competancy however, the fact that this thread exists suggests that the originator has doubts and perhaps requires more experience before carrying out condition surveys without somone to guide him.

My take would be : Rotorvate a soil strip 750mm wide, including turf. Plant a doubled stagered row of bare root or pot grown whips 500mm between plants and 300mm between rows (4 per metre). Remove upper third of whip after planting to initiate bud break at the base of the plant. Do not use spiral guards - waste of time and ruins the hedge. Instead set out a mesh wire fence (anti-rabbit) along the whole length of the hedgerow. Spread semi-composted bark mulch 100 mm deep across the whole bed. Top up bark mulch annually or as required.

The Pruning of Trees Shrubs and Conifers by George E Brown sets out a lot of info about how to prune and timings. Its a bit dated now but can be still very useful. I think the current thinking for the best time to prune trees (most trees) is mid-summer and not during their dormant season. (tin hat on)

Unless the house has poor foundations and built on shrinkable clay soil, I doubt that there would be any issue of subsidence and in any case subsidence issues require structural reports. There is more chance that the tree's roots will cause direct damage to the house due to its close proximity but the council is not likely to allow removal on the grounds that the tree may or may not, at some unknown time in the future, physically damage the house. For Stubby; external walls can be lintelled across structural roots or if the worse came to the worse, the wall can be replaced with a close-board fence. The Client sounds like someone who wants something i.e tree removed but expects the magic of the tree removal fairy to somehow come up with an answer. Unless something is shouting at you, e.g. decay, structural damage to either the tree or the house, it is highly unlikely that the council will agree to the tree being removed unless supported by evidence collected by the relevent experts and even then, the council may require an alternative solution to allow the tree to remain. Some battles cannot be won.

I don't think your opinion in regards to the tree damaging the foundations will help with the council agreeing to the removal of the tree unless you are a structural engineer who has carried out a survey of the building and foundations. If the tree is protected by a TPO. the council are quite within their rights to ask for supporting evidence before determining your application. I also do not think that the council will care too much about the state of any paving or garden wall. They can both be repaired easily. Dropping of branches may only require a management plan to remove dead wood or partial crown works and again not a reason to consent to the tree's removal. Doesn't leave many options and it may be that the tree is sound, has high public amenity and should remain. To remove a tree in this position will probably require further investigation to determine if the trunk or roots are decayed . . . unlikely or bring in a structural engineer to state that the house is being damaged. Even then, the council may require other alternatives to remediate the situation. If the tree must remain, perhaps it will end up with your client moving . . . good luck.

Quite often when rear garden trees are TPO'd, they council include a number of trees from adjoining or nearby gardens, is this the case here?. If so, then your trees must be seen in context with the wider area. It doesn't matter now, why the TPO was served, it sounds like it is established and no doubt confirmed and as such stands. The opportunity to object was when the TPO was served. It may not be what you want to read but when you bought the house, you knew the trees were TPO'd and it was therefore your responsibility to research what this means and how the trees will affect you and how you want to live in the future. It would be the same if I bought a listed building and then decided that new modern windows and a porch is required. Paying for an experienced consultant to give you independent advice may be the way forward. There are often engineering solutions to ground issues (roots and foundations)and with a long term management of the crowns, there may be a way forward. A good consultant will be someone who has dealt with local authorities on a wide variety of tree related issues and can negotiate on your behalf to navigate your needs through the planning process. You cannot garantee to get everything you want but a compromise which balances your needs with the needs of the trees may be found.

A drink's too wet without one . . . Rich Tea Biscuits - circa 1976

The meaning of the term specification relates to the document as a whole, not the individual elements within it. In other words, it would not be wise just to say all development to comply with BS5837:2012. If you are claiming that your tree report is BS 5837;2012 compliant and it is not, you must justify how/why your report is not compliant. If your report deviates so much from the BS then it might be said that the report is no longer a BS5837 report. You may re-write the categorisation methodology but it is a significant part of the BS and as such, are you really providing a BS report or a version of your own report. There is ample provision within the AIA to give reason/justification why a tree should be retained/removed irrespective of whether it is an A, B or C category tree/group

Trees are not placed in the category you want them to be in. Their grading is based on a cascade chart whereby all trees start off being checked as to whether they are unsuitable for retention. In other words, trees with a remaining contribution of less than 10 years are categorised as U. All other trees to be considered for retention are placed into the A category. If they do not fulfill the criteria for A category (qualitative and remaining contribution), they drop to a B category. If they do fulfill the requirements for A category, then they remain an A category. If trees do not comply with the qualitative and remaining contribution of a B category, they drop to a C catagory. If they do fulfill the requirements for B category, then they remain a B category. In BS, there is no provision to slot a tree into any particular or preferred category.

Hi Paul- my point was- how long is the development going to be there before it's bulldozed and replaced with something else? I might have a root around and see if there's any data on this, as my experience is that while you sometimes see older buildings (Victorian schools etc) being demolished and replaced, I far more often see buildings of less that 40 years old coming down. With that in mind, what relevance has the lifespan of 40+ years for an A tree got, when a tree which is already in middle age, or a fast-grower which will mature during the development "lifespan"? The LPA can only look at 'what is' and not 'what maybe'. If it is intended that the development has a life of less than 40 years and the LPA conditions the approval to this effect, you may have a point. This has been the case recently where I acted for a solar farm with a planning life of 40 years. At the end of this period, the developer will need to go back to the planners for an extension of time or remove the developemnt and reinstate to pasture. In normal planning situations, no LPA will condition a building for any maximum time frame. Remember we have prefabs built after the war and meant to last less than 10 years and which are still lived in over 60 years later. If an owner wishes to demolish their building, they don't even need planning permission but any new development (permitted development excepted) should consider the material elements i.e trees and ecology when determining the application.

If the trees have a remaining contribution of less than 40 years, they cannot be given an A category, no matter how wonderful they are. It is not for the arb consultant to rewrite the BS, bend it maybe but not rewrite it. Sustainability is an issue but think about this> The TO has a mature tree happily growing on site, why would he/she allow that tree to be removed and then replaced with a sapling tree with a limited chance of reaching maturity. At the same time, the removal of that tree may allow the developer to cram another house or as usual, another car parking space onto the site and the removal of the tree is essential to maximise profit. The obvious argument is to remove the tree on the grounds of sustainability i.e. the replacement tree will live for 100 years whilst the existing tree will remain for 20 years. You can see the dilemma and as usual, the arb consultant is caught in the middle. I was once called 'the enemy' because I agreed with the council, that a proposed building was too close to a retained tree . . . and that's from my Client. The Tree Constraints Plan has been deliberately left out of the BS as too many TO's were relying on it at the expense of the far more important - Arb Impact Assessment. You are free to provide a TCP to your Client and it would be sensible to do so, however the BS does say that the RPA's should be plotted onto relevent drawings including the site layout plan. So you are right, its a TCP but with a different name. In my view, the BS is OK. It has flaws especially with modern technical solutions to development proposals and it allows the TO to rely on its litteral content rather than seeing the document as a tool. Where I see its greatest failing is that, in a lot of cases, the document is based on subjectivity but wrapped up in objective language and as such interpretation is very variable especially between the TO and arb consultant/developer. That is why poorly qualified TO's with limited experience can cost a developer a lot of money and time over nit picking the detail within the BS rather than looking at the bigger and more holostic picture of the real world.

Thanks Sylvia. All makes sense, although the tree officer should still condition tree protection for the off site trees if the development or means to develop is within their RPA.

The British Standard is just that, it is a standard and is generally accepted to be the lead document in relation to trees when considering planning. That said, it is also a load of old billhooks in many respects. The BS appears to be a document which has lost touch with reality and that was brought out during the road show last year when the author explained the ins and outs of it. The caregorisation of trees (the cascade chart) gives a category value to trees but as we all know, development has to go ahead and will go ahead and so the arb consultant is immediately squashed between the needs of the developer and the requirements of the LPA. The catergory rating is based on two values , both of which are subjective. There's the quality value and the remaining contribution value. Both of which must be achieved for any particular category to be applied. The context is another subjective point. Context normally relates to the relationship of the development with its surroundings. So a block of flats in a field has a poor contextual relationship but just about anything in an urban area has a good (or less bad) contextual relationship. All in all, no arb consultant can get it right. The developer sees it one way whilst the TO sees it another. All you can do is what you think is right, stick to your own independent views, be consistant, remember who is paying you and realise that at the end of the day the TO is only trying to save trees for the benefit of the local community. I should think that in a residential or overgrown or self sett situation, the majority of trees will be categorised as C. Which is just as well. By the way, Tree Constraints Plans are a thing of the past. Not mentioned in the BS and only used as an internal design tool.

I am a bit confused with this. You say a planning application was made, the TO objected on the grounds of trees and the ap was subsiquently refused. After appealing the decision, the Planning Inspectorate allowed the development. That all sounds normal. Whats more the Inspectorate's decision is the planning decision and any Conditions are the conditions. But then you go on to say that a new application is submitted. Why is there a new ap when the Planning Inspector has already made a decision. The only reason a new ap is submitted, is because the scheme has fundamentally changed and is no longer the previous and agreed scheme. In any event should the outcome be that the development can go ahead, there is no reason why a condition cannot be included to require tree protection measures and methodology. In fact the TO would probably be very wrong not to require such a condition.

Perhaps then, there was a valid reason for serving the TPO which was identified and supported by the High Court, judicial reviewer and the Ombudsman.. . .

You can serve a TPO if it is expedient in the interests of amenity to do so. If served for the interests of amenity the tree should be visible from a public place or more likely that it should not be barely visible from a public place. It doesn't matter if the tree is growing in a front or rear garden and I have known TPO's to be served because the trees were visible from across a valley nearly a mile away.

Or you could employ a decent arb consultant to give you sound advice and if required to object on your behalf . . .

Ha ha . . . Its like when six of your friends say you are ill . . . then lie down. In this case, when six people say its a notification, then its a notification.

Your 211 notice can be in the form of a letter. The council have acknowledged it. They have 6 weeks to decide if the tree should be retained, if the council want the tree retained, they must must serve a TPO within the 6 week period. The council cannot approve or refuse the works. Also a 211 notice is not an application under planning and as such the council cannot modify, alter or set conditions. Looks to me that the council has messed up and providing no TPO has been served or the tree is not protected under existing planning conditions (ususally for 5 years) you are free to fell.