10 Bears

Im sorry to tell you rob - but the ownership is not decided as you state, so you are not correct. Trees are 'land' property ie if you own the land - you own the tree and proportions thereof. If your boundary splits the tree, then you own split amounts. Its pretty straight forward and is backed up in law.

Im probably talking to myself about this now -- which wouldnt be the first time, but Ive referred to the aforementioned sage (Mr Mynors) and here are his comments: "Land is of course, divided into neighbouring parcels in separate ownership. This will normally be by vertical division; and since land extends to include the air above the surface and the ground below it, as well as the surface of the land itself, this means that the soil containing the roots of the tree, or the above ground portion of the tree may be in two or more completely separate ownerships". (Mynors, 2.1.4 Trees on or Near Boundaries, P.27). Earlier comments about trespass and nuisance are correct to some degree - but not relevant in deciding ownership and subsequent liabilities, and I suggest would not apply to this question.

This was probably the funniest comment I have ever read on here!

No, there is no majority rule. If 90% wants it felled, and 10% doesn't - there is an impasse that in truth only arbitration would resolve.

Ill answer this point as most of your others have been looked at in one way or another. In simple terms, ownership is proportionate to the percentage within each boundary. In your example, the ownership would be 90:10, so if remedial work was required, the bill would be split proportionately the same. Trees are considered as land in terms of property and ownership, so the owner of the soil around the trees roots is also the owner of the tree - this is how the proportional ownership is decided, however you must consider the following 2 points: - 1. Although the tree/hedgerow lies in its current position, and you could assume that the mid-point of this is the boundary, however, this may not be the case. - 2. You *must* refer to the deeds to the property to confirm the lie of the boundary as indicated by the planning records. Only this will confirm the exact proportion of ownership in this case.

Im sure you are there academically, but there is more to consider with tree reports/consultancy work. There are lots of threads on here about report writing in any case, but here are my thoughts on your thread: - Firstly - do you have professional indemnity insurance? If not, don't commit anything to paper, and be prepared (££'s) to continue this insurance for a period of 7 years after you write your last report (due to historic liabilities). - Dont just consider trees along side the path - within falling distance of targets is the key so they could be further back. - General NPTCs will not give you any remit to write reports. The fact you dont have formal Arb qauals would be very much against you in a court of law should the worst case happen. - Accurate mapping is essential. - The format of the report would be determined by the complexity of the task. One A4 with scant or not transparent information could also see you in the hopper at some later point. If you are not sure what to put in the report - I believe you are not ready to write the report. In short, sub it out to someone with the required knowledge, the right experience, accurate GPS kit and the insurance to do the job.

Copy and paste this into Word and make a little leaflet from it - post it through the 5 doors: Penalties for Unauthorised Work Once a tree preservation order (TPO) is in force it is an offence to fell, prune or remove branches or roots, top, lop, wilfully damage or wilfully destroy the tree without the written consent of the local council. Some types of work to trees is exempt from these procedures; however before undertaking work you consider to be exempt it is a good idea to speak to the local Tree Officer at the council for their advice. Both the tree owners and the tree surgeons could be fined up to £20,000 for carrying out unauthorised work.

Purely for reference, this is the reason why the levels were chosen Forsters - News - Publications although that said, Atkins Vs. Scott 2008 subsequently established the principle that qualifications aren't everything and experience can be a suitable qualifier for this type of work...

Correct Chris - as I understand it: Fatsia japonica | Japanese aralia/RHS Gardening Although to be fair I will admit to saying I should have used the botanic name...

Castor oil plant Id say.

Its all a matter of efficiency! In my opinion, there is little point trying to plot trees with >25m accuracy, when if you wait a couple of hours, you could perhaps get it back down to sub-metre. I just think it can be worth the wait sometimes... And don't be dismissive of Mystic Meg - there's more powerful things in the cosmos then just you and I!

Just a thought Jules, but did you set up a planner for this survey using a satellite almanac? You may have had good numbers of satellites, but with unreliable signal. You still get a fix, but then the signal strength is a bit fuzzy. I don't have the required software to check if this is the right link (it just opens as a text file without the software) - but Trimble put out an almanac every month that tells you when the best time of day is to be surveying. You may find you can survey from 8-11.30am as the satellites are spot on, then take a couple of hours off as they drop in efficiency, and then pick up again at say 13:30 when the heavens align and all is right with the world again. These optimum windows change each day and it can cause you lots of weak signal/location problems if you don't plan it out. Anyhow the Trimble link is here: Trimble - GPS Data Resources Its the first link at the top of the page. (Ive also PM'ed you Jules....)

I sprayed some old railing recently with Hammerite Smoothfinish in Silver/Grey. The railing came up OK and the paint had a 'metal' look about it once dry. This was sprayed onto metal though - I don't know if it will behave the same on wood...

Yep - I agree with Bren.

Just an update - I came across this article which discusses a submetre GNSS receiver specifically for those of you using iPad/iPhones Geneq Introduces Sub-Meter GNSS Receiver for iPad, iPhone : GPS World I don't have either so I've not spent much time looking into this, but its currently in the states and should be either released over here or possible to direct import. Adam M - how did you get on with Pear Tech? I'm interested to know. I've also PM'ed you - could you check?

I just came across this website for paleo cooking: PaleOMG – Paleo Recipes Seems like there is a fair amount of interesting food to try. It doesn't do any harm that the lady cook is somewhat attractive as well (IMO)!

I beleive your expereince of it, as some SSSI are there in a complex designation and others less so. That is why I suggested finding out why the SSSI was enacted and essentially how likely you are to infringe on the protected species. If you consider something like Morecambe Bay - the entire area is a SSSI, but there is all sorts that happen within it from industry to farming to tourism etc. etc. all of which are permitted due the their relevant impact on the SSSI. Designations like this are not a bar to working within the area - you just have to acknowledge why the designation is there are work accordingly by not destroying whatever the SSSI is protecting!

Ive wanted to know how it works for a while now - so I can do it myself! Just think of all the time and mess in the kitchen that would be saved if I could just self-feed through my skin. More time to spend on AT no doubt...

I thought bacterial slime flux for the longer stream of gunk....

Landowners - no, not by a long shot. I was brought up in a working class family from one of the less affluent areas of the city, so none of us own land other than the houses we respectively live in now. My comments about landowners making a profit are purely based on realism and pragmatism ie someone owns the land, and just because it happens to be countryside - why shouldn't the landowner make money from it? You admit that for you its nimbyism which is to be honest understandable, if you don't like the look of the turbines. I can see turbines from my house - and they don't bother me at all, so I presume its just a matter of perspective. I believe that there are other issues to consider though. Take my location for instance. I live pretty much equidistant between 2 nuclear power stations (Heysham and Sellafied) and I can assure you, I would much rather look to the hills and see turbines, then see another power station in my "beautiful countryside" like either one of them. And dont forget the waste from these places, there are still plans to use the Cumbrian fells as a nuclear waste repositiry, and I can assure you that if there is a leak from that, then the beautiful countryside would be far more harmed when compared to putting up a few turbines. I was at an energy conference recently, and one of the newer energy schemes being 'floated' (laugh at my own joke here) was tidal turbines. These are similar to wind turbines but obviously are set up with the blades beneath the sea. Although this sounds like a good idea, the problem is there is not enough known about what will happen to the marine life (minced dolphin anyone) and as the concept is in its infancy, the technology is still being developed and the costs associated are astronomical. So, wind, solar, tidal or whatever - these are the future in one way or another. We all just need to change the collective negative outlook regarding alternative energies (yes I know that's a generalisation), and embrace the idea, or to be fair our children and grandchildren will inherit a place that is in more of a mess then it was when we got hold of it.

Thanks everyone for some really great input here, and there is certainly some hardware I will now investigate. Comments about accuracy being difficult are always associated with handheld GPS and there are only 2 solutions. The first is buy some kit with the opportunity to affix an external aerial (this again gets into the more expensive realms), or second, stay in the surveying location for a longer period. On the Trimble Terrasync software in the GPS - you will see a number that confirms how many 'hits' you have had from the satellites (its in the ribbon at the top as I recall). I believe if you stay put until you have c.30 hits then accuracy is greatly improved. I don't know if other softwares show this hit rate - but I would guess so. The only issue is, if you are surveying a lot of trees, that having to wait for the required number of hits will increase the overall length of the survey... Cant win them all!

Well, sometimes its nice to help someone out if you can. Sometimes!

I will start this by saying that of course everyone is entitled to their opinion, and my comments here are no exception. Overall though, I'm surprised by all the negative comments towards wind farms. There is an absolute case for alternative energy sources (ie not fossil fuel based or nuclear) and there is a significant amount of research under way that is aiming to maximise the use of clean energy. I'm also surprised that for people who work in an industry that aims to reduce risk and manage the environment in whatever context, urban or rural, that green schemes which purport to reduce societies impact on the environment are not more supported. I for one support the creation and use of wind farms and alternative energy sources in general. Surely comments that suggest green schemes only exist to make the rich, richer or screw the working man are completely missing the point. The working man doesn't own the land that the wind farms are on for example, so what difference does it make if the landowner then goes on to make money by renting out sections of their land for wind farms? The issue is that a clean energy is produced which is good for everyone, not that someone has an opportunity for a bit of profit. Is it the case that negative comments about this could be fuelled by economic jealousy and nimbyism? As I said - just my thoughts on this...

ifanrhys - I have an excel spreadsheet I've created that will help you get a handle on roughly working out your costs. Its not too fancy, but will help you start down the right track. PM me with your email and I will send it over.

I cant believe that's real!