10 Bears

Just seen the highlights on Wimbledon 2day. Very, very close. It was a shame Heather Watson didnt manage to win, but she showed great skills against Serena. Another year or two and Heather will win...

I like that a lot. Definitely a case of "work smarter not harder!". Good effort...

My reading of this situation is that the new trees in the track are covered by the TPO. The woodland TPO protects all trees within the defined area, including natural regeneration - seedlings and saplings etc. Huck says the TPO map covers the area of the track - meaning that the new trees are within the defined woodland boundary area and are covered. That said, an onsite visit with the TO and providing evidence of previous use of the site should hopefully lead to a successful TPO works application

Yes, Dryads.

You got me there - but I was thinking more towards the end of June...

Surely there is only one festival in the South-west worth thinking about - and its on next month...

Requested a booking, awaiting a response - but should see you there...

My children attend a school that has regular forest school lessons, and I help as regularly as I can. Its an excellent venture if you can get involved, and I suspect the easiest route would be by 'assisting' an FS teacher. Best of luck with it.

Doesn't go on sale until Feb 2016, so you are not getting one for Christmas this year! As you can can see from my avatar, I was actually the early prototype for the Lily camera. Cool toy though.

I've only just seen this thread but I will make some time to post some comments. I've recently got a lot of surveying work from a Parish Council who unfortunately are also listening to a self-appointed bat 'expert', who TBH is simply complicating matters needlessly. A BS in this area - lead by some common sense, would be particularly useful for the Arb industry I feel. Perhaps some more folk from here should put their views in...

Hello Bob, Yes, I do currently have the two separate policies in place and they are both related to proportional turnover for each category of work. Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, the PL premium is considerably more then the PI, despite the fact that the PI related work is the significant majority of my turnover. I've since had a few other quotes come in over the weekend/Monday morning and TBH, I cannot see any real benefit in moving away from Lycetts. In particular the newer companies I've tried (named above) were more expensive on both types of insurance then Lycetts, by the order of a few hundred pounds each. Perhpas its better the devil you know in this case. Looks like I'm staying with Lycetts unless a fantastic new quote comes in from somewhere else... Best regards.

As usual, I've put this off too long. My renewal is next week and I have to decide who to go with for insurance. I am currently with Lycetts on £5M PL and £1M PI and to be honest, I have experienced good terms and good rates from them over the years. I know some new companies have started up in the meantime (or probably not so new now) - for example, Arborisk and Tree Surgeon Insurance. Looking through other threads, lots of you rate their services. I have asked for quotes from both. Here is the issue though, my work must be 90-95% consultancy, and 5-10% manual (don't tell me that adds up to 105% - I'm trying to suggest it fluctuates year on year!), so perhaps I am not best insured by companies that are predominantly focussed on the manual side of the industry? So can anyone recommend other insurers, that in your opinion/experience are worth contacting for a quote?

They are trying to make a new contract. Refuse it formally or you could lose your strong breech of contract position. Also advise that any further communication must be in writing (for your evidence). If they call again, politely advise them to write a letter or email and then end the call.

I see your point, but under the charge of 'private' nuisance this situation would stand IMO as the defendant (chap owning the hedge) is "causing a substantial and unreasonable interference with a claimant's land or his use or enjoyment of that land" as defined in Bamford v Turnley (1860) - a key precedent tort case. Or to put it another way - Just because you cant control your hedge, does not allow you to prevent me from using my land in the way that I want. Hence even the death of bedding plants is a legally 'reasonable' case to make. I think that the issue is that under the legal definition of nuisance, there is the right to the 'quiet/peaceful/pleasant use of their own land' - so again supporting my view that this overhanging hedge would be affecting the rights of the claimant, so I believe that even for the death of bedding plants - they can abate.

Well, the electorate have spoken... and have voted to end the UK as we know it. I don't think that too many thought it through, that voting conservative in order to simply oppose Labour would leave a massive hole for the nationalists to walk through. I certainly didn't see it coming either. Its a shame, but IMO, having the SNP as the 3rd major party will surely see another referendum in (just a guess) a year or so from now, and the dissolution of the union shortly thereafter. It has been a historically significant election that's for certain...

Well Sloth, if you do manage to go, I hope to see your full and detailed review on here. Handouts also appreciated!

Just watching the Election Special 2015. On the early votes in and all the pundit chat that I've seen tonight, my prediction is... Labour with UKIP coalition. I'm turning off now (23:28) - I wonder if I'll find out I was right in the morning?

Thanks for posting this - there are many on here that will no doubt make the most of the notice. Unfortunately I cant go - prior arrangements...

This appears to be a contractual issue as they formally offered a settlement in the letter. In short, it works like this: 1. An offer was made via a contract (the letter) 2. No counter offer was put by your girlfriend ie she did not offer counter terms 3. The contract was enacted - both parties honoured their respective parts of the contract (this is up until the phone call) 4. The contract is in breech when they did not pay. So, yes you have a case to claim the money legally - but I expect you should move fast in order to recover it. If the company goes into administration, your girlfriend will be at the end of a long lost of debtors and would most likely get nothing. Depending on the monetary amounts involved (<£10K), then the best bet would be to try to recover monies through the small claims court. It does cost to make a claim - but as this is a breech of contract it will almost certainly go in your favour. A key thing to making a small claims application is that you must be able to evidence you have tried to resolve the issue with the other party - the best way is to have a notorized letter delivered - this is best achieved through a solicitor (more costs), but there may be other cheaper ways. After this letter, and given a fair amount of time for reply (state this in your letter), you can then apply to the court to recover the money you are owed - plus all your costs. More info on the process here. This may sound daunting, but in my experience of similar, you are almost certain to win this (assuming all facts are as stated) and that you follow the requirements of application. Best of luck with it, and go and see the CAB to confirm what I have said.

Interesting comments here, but I can speak from experience about the 'plod' issue. Without giving too much information as this is ongoing, I have recently had a client that was hauled to the station, read his rights and held for a period of time while statements were taken - all because he pruned back a neighbours tree. This has been a long standing dispute, even with an element of physical confrontation, but the police were happy to pursue potential theft of private property when they found the arisings in the back of my clients trailer. Fortunately, it did not go further as he had some evidence to back him up. Sorry cant give more details, but it shows that the police in some areas will follow this through. A good point about the counter suit - although this is where things can start to get messy ie making claim and reclaim. Not a pleasant business.

I've only just got back to this and it seems there has been a lot written since. I haven't read anything else - so apologies if I'm repeating information already put down. Turns out, it wasn't Mynors that I was thinking of, its a really useful book called Neighbours and the Law by Pugh-Smith, Sinclair and Upton. I got this a few years ago as I had a nightmare neighbour and wanted to know where I stood on a few issues. Its been a useful book since. Anyhow, so I said to abate back to the boundary etc over-rides TPO. NATL states, "The right to abate nuisance exists even if the tree itself is subject to a tree preservation order" (6.07 p213) and it further states that this is clarified in the Town and Country Planning Act. The key issue is that there is an actionable nuisance (which admittedly is not clear in a re-read of the OP). So what is actionable then? There has to be some sort of impingement on the affected landowner's enjoyment of their land or something tangible like damage eg root uplift or water losses from lawns etc. Just a guess of course with regards to the OP, but in this case, the situation may be that recently planted bedding plants are not being able to grow in the overhang of the hedge - this would be a loss on behalf of the affected landowner and there is an avenue for abatement. You raise the point that your local TO may have a different point of view and no doubt you are right! In practice with anything like this, I would always consult/advise them of the situation before I went ahead with anything. Irrespective of any interpretation of the law, I would always be upfront about what it happening on a site...

Hello Gary - no problem, I dont see asking a question as an argument! I do have a reference for this - probably Minors again, but Im away from my books at the moment. I'll look it up later and post my findings here.

A couple of important points to make: 1. You must offer all arisings back to the owner as they are private property once separated from the tree. If you don't you are committing theft should you take them away. 2. You must not cross over the boundary line at any time without permission as this is trespass. You can of course commit aerial trespass, so you must be able to do the work from a MEWP or free standing ladder or similar. Otherwise, as stated above you are free to abate back to the boundary, and this is actually irrespective of a TPO. Meaning that you can prune back even if the TPO is in place as the right to abate over-rides the TPO (but obviously only up to the boundary).

Philip - whats your age/experience/quals/home-life commitments? These will all have a factor in deciding what else you could do. Assuming you have all the necessary requirements in place, and not knowing if you have any experience in anything else other then tree chogging, some obvious suggestions are: - employ others to do the hard work as said above (good if you can manage it) - tree consultancy - training/assessor - Rope access worker (cleaning windows!) - Conservation warden eg RSPB etc. - TO (they never do any hard work do they?) - National trust/Parks ranger - International playboy etc. I used to be on the tools full time, and slowly transgressed into consultancy and increased my level of education ie full time job/mature student part time. It was hard but worth it as this route genuinely opened a lot of doors for me, and suited my aspirations, but of course I don't know if that would be suitable for your circumstances. Let us know more about yourself so we can make some informed recommendations or suggest other possibilities...

Do you know, I don't think it's you. I trialled mapmaker and also found it very cumbersome to use. Also it's a simple computerised cartography program, not a GIS, so doesn't allow detailed analysis of your data should you need to.