steve.m

Hi 10Bears Yes that was my thoughts, the Mynors book seems to only deal with prosecution for tree works on TPO trees rather than the validity of the TPO itself and any consequences of this. I will ask the TO his thoughts Thank you for the response

A situation I have been asked about is where contractors felled a tree covered by a woodland TPO . The council were informed about said works but was subsequently found that the land owner was never informed of the TPO. A bit of toing and froing resulted but in the end the contractor was let off due to this fact that the TPO was not implemented correctly My query is now the TPO is known about does the original TPO stand or do the council have to re-do the paper work so to speak in such that the original TPO is invalid due to incorrect procedures etc.... Any ideas be much appreciated

pm sent

See you have raised it by 4K I would put at least another 3-6k on top of that espicially for the qualifications and knowledge your asking for IMHO.

'I can understand a client getting a bit impatient with the process.' I dont......... more or less on every planning application form in the country are the imortal words ' Are there trees on or adjacent to the site'. Every developer knows, but some still choose to ignore, about BS5837 it's just they still think they can get away with it and that is why I take the blunt route by almost telling them off. Education, education education it's a slow process but they will get there. I have had developers ask me to downgrade trees my answer is are they willing to pay me a life times worth of work when I get laughed at and ridiculed never to work in this industry again, no is the usual reply so hence my reply no and dont call me again your fired, I have done this several times in my career there are just some people who are not worth working for. If developers get impatient they either do not know what they are doing or they are getting bad advice from their planning department/ agent. BS5837 has been around long enough now that ignorance is not an excuse, thankfully most are quite willing to have you on board and take your advice very seriously.

Yes it does seem unbelievable but this was in the time of boom and the land buyers would get commission so they bought any old land no checks nothing. You would be surprised at how many times I have seen this and no doubt it will happen many times more. It still shocks me to this day that so many developers ignore the trees/ TPO issues and that is why I and no doubt others are called up at the last minute so many times to get them out of the hole they have dug for themselves. Education is the best way and being whacked in the wallet also helps, company in question now has me doing a pre purchase survey everytime they buy land!!!

You would think

Personally I am very blunt with my clients and tell them how it is going to be rather than what they want it to be if they dont like it I remind them that if they had paid me to conduct a pre purchase survey, that would only have cost a few hundred, I would have flagged these issues up and they could then either negotiate a better land price on this information or leave well alone. The best example I had of this is a very well know developer bought some land for £5Mill and was hoping for 100+ houses and then I told them the bad news after they paid that the whole site was A TPO LOL!!!! Also there is no being lenient due to the LPA, or most LPA's, being hot on these issues and basically getting what they want which is a good thing. ultimately its about protecting trees as much as possible the loss of a few roots carefully and intentionally pruned is not as bad as a digger ripping them apart. I also try to educate my clients to the fact that trees are nice and will increase the value of their development and more than pay for my services as well as making the LPA like them so in the long term win win If all else fails I tell the client the tree officer is complete and utter tree hugger and you have not got a hope in hells chance of removing that lovely Oak so redesign your layout and fire your landbuyer!!!! God I love my job it's such good fun

Hi did you get my PM ???

Hi May be interested in the surveying work dont exactly live near by but willing to travel and stay over if its worth my while. Email me, I think you can, with more details and we can talk if its still on offer. Cheers Steve