Acer ventura

Why? Otherwise, you’re imposing a greater duty of care on a Homeowner than you are on a State Government. Generally, it’s the other way around. Just to clarify that’s part of the Plan, not the Policy. I’m not being a pedant, the distinction is important. Hey, no problem with registering concern and putting an alternative take on it. I’m very much aware that it challenges a lot of preconceived and accepted practices. But when you look at it closely, the practice of removing all vegetation to access the lower 2m of a tree to try to find hidden defects without obvious tree risk features to justify it, but not trying to find hidden defects elsewhere doesn’t stack up. Not least because it’s disproportionate to the overall level of extremely low risk. This point is laid out in the Policy, which is why it’s so important. To quote someone who is way smarter than me on the subject of risk. "…the prospects of reducing the risk from tree failure below the current level are remote and comparable to finding a microscopic needle in a gargantuan haystack." Public Safety and Risk Assessment (2011), Professor David Ball, Centre for Decision Analysis and Risk Management It’s not a cop-out. The duty holder is the decision-maker. They’re responsible for the management decisions. The NTSG and ISO 31000 is really clear on this. One of the problems that the duty holder is faced with is Arborists going beyond risk assessment decision-making into risk management decision-making. They’re not trained to do this. I’m not sure you’ve grasped the importance of those traffic light coded risks in the Policy that you’re mocking in favour of inspection training. They’re obvious tree risk features to you, and a good reason to want to have a closer look. They’re not obvious to a Homeowner though. If Homeowner is worried, for whatever reason, and they call you in and you gave these reasons to want to have a closer look, then I really have no problem with that. If, on the other hand, you were to routinely say that with any obvious tree risk features you wanted to see whether there were any hidden defects in the lower 2 m of a tree, but not the other parts, and said they had to remove the vegetation themselves or pay you to do it, then from a risk-benefit management point of view, I think we have a problem.

I was wondering when you’d continue your disturbing pursuit of me as a self-appointed QTRA Brownshirt. Ironic that it’s on here, where your single white male obsession was first kindled in 2013 because I was part of QTRA back then, and you were boasting your superior home-knitted system to quantify tree risk. If you’d bothered to read the post and the strategy before frothing at the mouth, you’d see it’s for the Homeowner. There’s no scope to use the App. It’s not even mentioned. If a Homeowner sees an obvious tree risk feature they ring an Arborist. It doesn’t even say ring a Tree Risk Validator.

I forgot to mention that I screwed up the pdf compilation when first I posted this. When combining the files I imported the wrong Plan, which had some grammatical errors and manglish in it. This is fixed now and it can be downloaded here. Tree Risk-Benefit Management Strategy, Policy & Plan | VALID TINYURL.COM An elegantly simple solution to a complex problem - all in the palm of your hand!

Sorry, for the delay in replying. I didn’t get an alert for your post. Here’s some additional thoughts. Not to spend time, money, and take away habitat benefits by removing climbing plants, undergrowth, basal growth, or cutting hedgerows unless there’s an obvious tree risk feature is a risk-benefit management decision. Not an assessment decision. It’s about the duty holder managing the primary risk, which is the risk from tree failure. We know this is an extremely low risk. So extremely low, almost everything we do each day carries a higher risk than being hit by a tree. To remove vegetation without an obvious tree risk feature to trigger it is disproportionate to the likely overall risk reduction. This becomes particularly important when it scales up to a Landowner or Government Agency. At the moment I’m doing some work with the Tasmanian Government on managing tree risk on their main roads. The prospects of removing any vegetation at the base of trees within falling distance of their main roads are mind-boggling. Often, the surveying/inspection decision to remove this stuff by an Arborist is about them managing the secondary risk, which are the chances of negligence claim being made against them, irrespective of the actual primary risk. That section you’re not keen on is something that’s not an assessor’s decision. They’re making their risk assessment within those limitations set in the Homeowner’s strategy. Just as you’ll be saying a tree has an Acceptable risk from branch failure without climbing the tree, you’re extending this to say the tree has Acceptable level of risk of failure based on what you can see. Out of interest, do you specify removing all Ivy, rhododendron, bramble, hedgerows, laurel, shrubs, epicormics, etc as a matter of course to look closer, no matter the condition of the tree? You say easy and low cost. What’s your boundary between easy and hard, and low cost v high cost, and how have you worked out that your boundary is the right side of disproportionate? For one tree in a garden it might be easy to remove, but what about 50? Or if the owner likes the ivy. Or it’s their shrubs that are screening their garden. I don’t have a problem with an assessor saying to the duty holder, “You might want to consider severing that ivy at the base”, but it’s the duty holder’s choice. You’re right about the language, though I’m not sure it’s rebranding. It’s being really clear about what is risk assessment and what is risk management . It’s also not about a ‘survey’ or ‘inspection’. You may have noticed, I don’t use words like ‘survey’ or ‘inspection’. These words are loaded with expectations driven by qualification and training. It’s probably a separate thread to chat about what we’re doing when we ‘inspect trees’. For example, as I understand it during the 3 day PTI course you don’t assess the risk, which I find odd. Why inspect a tree in so much detail and not have a risk output? I think one of the reasons why some Arborists feel uncomfortable not removing vegetation is because that’s what’s been told in the past. That you have to inspect the lower 2 m of a tree in detail to try and find hidden defects, but the rest, not so much. ‘tree safety policy’ Following on from above, I’m not being a pendant here. The wording is really important. The ‘safety’ word isn’t used in any of the strategies. You can’t make trees safe. Not least because most people think safe means a complete absence of risk.

I appreciate your suggestion and discussion. It's really useful to debate this kind of thing. Perhaps this explains it better. The risk feature needs to be ‘obvious’ to warrant taking a closer look. Not removing other vegetation without an obvious tree risk feature (like dieback) has the same logic to it as to why you don’t climb every tree to look at the top of a branch to establish there’s no tree risk feature up there. You wouldn’t recommend a climbing inspection of a tree unless there was some ‘obvious’ feature to warrant doing it. Similarly, you don’t carry out a root excavation to establish there are no tree risk features in the roots either, unless there’s a trigger. You’re not looking for hidden features, otherwise, where do you stop. Something hidden by undergrowth, on the upper side of a branch, or beneath ground isn’t ‘obvious’ unless there’s a trigger pointing you to it. Actually, the plan is to eventually capture stats on this with an App. However, the key thing about this short strategy is it’s the Homeowner managing tree risk in a reasonable, proportionate, and reasonably practicable way. It’s not necessary for them to VTA a tree, and that in itself opens up separate can of worms. They’re not ‘actively’ looking for obvious tree risk features. They ‘can’t help but notice them’. It’s called Passive Assessment, as opposed to Active Assessment, and these levels of assessment are explained further in the strategies for Government Agencies and Landowners. In short, if you’re paid to look at a tree, that’s Active Assessment. If you’re driving home on a Friday evening, with a case of cold beer, and pass one of your clients’ trees that’s so fecked you momentarily take your eyes off the road, that’s Passive Assessment. That last Obvious Tree Risk Features Guide page can be used by itself, and there’s a link to download a standalone version on the website. However, if you’re a Homeowner, and your tree fails and kills, injures, someone or damages their property and there's a legal claim made against you, then it’s the Policy and Plan (mainly the Policy) that are the pillars of your defence.

Hi Andrew The removing basal growth etc thing in the Plan. It was given a lot of thought and analysis, but it can’t be justified in terms of how extremely low the overall risk is, and the absence of an obvious tree risk feature to trigger a closer look. Homeowners might well have an easier task of doing this than Landowners, or Government Agencies, but to expect them to do it would put a higher duty of care on them than other duty holders. Homeowners aren’t carrying out tree surveys though. They’re just keeping an eye out on their own trees for obvious tree risk features, and then they ring you if they’re concerned. It’d be the Arborist who carries out a Detailed Assessment. That’s all it says. The Policy is there to provide the foundations which back up that approach.

Here’s your free Tree Risk-Benefit Management Strategy for Homeowners Tree Risk-Benefit Management Strategy, Policy & Plan | VALID WWW.VALIDTREERISK.COM An elegantly simple solution to a complex problem - all in the palm of your hand! We’ve just updated VALID's strategies (v3.0). As a not-for-profit, part of our quest is to democratise tree risk-benefit assessment and management, and encourage citizen science through public participation. We’ve waived copyright on these publications and they’re released under a creative commons license. So, you're welcome to use and share them. Download the strategy and use a pdf editor to alter the details on the cover and header. If you want to change the picture, no problem. You can now use it to add value to your service by giving your clients a copy.

Thanks, PB413.

I agree, the wind speeds were gusting up to Beaufort 12 close to the site in the storm, and I think the wind load was much more than a 'trigger'. The Met Office have it listed as a 2012 'Past Weather Event' (attached). IIRC, their last wind-related Past Weather Event before 2012, in that part of the UK, was in 2008. It's something I was going to explore in a follow up article, if I can get hold of the expert witness reports and joint statement. My first efforts were refused, and I'm looking at a different approach that's been suggested to me by a Barrister. winter-storms-early-january-2012---met-office.pdf

Hi Khriss I'd qualify this with the fact that I'm an Arborist, but my understanding is that Statute and Common Law are the primary tests, and you’re best to set out your stall relative to those. Case Law turns on the evidence presented during that particular trial. Though Cavanagh was appealed by Witley and failed, as I understand it the ‘facts’ of the case weren’t what was being appealed. These ‘facts’ are where a considerable problem lies because it looks like two of the key facts aren’t facts at all. The best way to set out your stall, and reduce the likelihood of a claim, is to adopt a Tree Risk-Benefit Management Strategy. I've got an article in this month's Arb Magazine about this and the work I've done with the Tasmanian Government on their Strategy, which I think is due out soon.

Those of you familiar with the landmark Cavanagh v Witley Parish Council Judgment (the two-yearly inspection Lime tree onto bus one). This analysis of what appears to be rotten at the roots of the evidence might be of interest. A heads up that this is quite a long read. Those of you familiar with VALID’s publications will be used to seeing things on one side of paper. This time, there’s too much ground to cover and some of the devil is in some of the detail. You might want to save it for a break and a drink of something. A case of rough justice? WWW.LINKEDIN.COM Cavanagh v Witley Parish Council - Establishing the context Sometimes, the gulf between reasonable, proportionate, and...

According to ISO 31000: 2018, ‘Risk Management — Guidelines’ “Risk is the effect of uncertainty on objectives”* In that context, given the current COVID-19 situation, here are VALID’s tree risk training dates for the UK this summer. Currently, we’ve got a 85-100% confidence that these will run. However, as with all good forecasting and risk management, we’ll adjust as and when better information becomes available. *This cryptic definition might appear vacuous but its purpose is that you consider the benefits of the risk, and move away from the negatively framed… Risk = The likelihood of something bad happening. One of the ‘objectives’ with tree risk management is the many benefits that trees provide, which we need. ..... A Money-Back Guarantee VALID is such a momentous improvement in the field of tree risk-benefit assessment and management that it comes with a money-back guarantee. If, after training, you go back to how you used to assess and manage tree risk, we'll refund you the fee. Yes, it's that much of a game-changer. https://lnkd.in/gszabx5

The current version (v1.6) of VALID's ‘Obvious Tree Defects Guide’ can be downloaded from the website as a pdf here. https://tinyurl.com/y679ucl4 This guide is for non-arborists. It’s free, and you’re welcome to share it with your clients, colleagues, and friends. The guide is there to encourage the kind of citizen science tree risk assessment that happens every day, and all the time. Which is why ‘Passive Assessment’* is such a valuable tree risk management asset. The only difference in this version to the previous one is it occurred to me that ‘tree defect’ is arb-speak. A civilian is more likely to think about whether a tree is ‘dangerous’ or not. So, the new headline is ‘When might a tree be dangerous?’ *Passive Assessment - Keeping an eye for obvious tree defects, you can’t help but notice, as you go about your day to day routine.

VALID’s Sep-Dec training workshops in the UK, Australia, and New Zealand are now open for booking here. https://tinyurl.com/y6pab3q8 Here's a few comments from those that have already been along and upgraded their approach to tree risk... “An elegantly simple solution to a complex problem - all in the palm of your hand!” “At last, tree risk assessment with clarity and impact” “VALID will replace current methods. Simply because it’s much smarter, and it's more efficient"

Mark Hartley and his team are coming all the way over from Australia to deliver a 3 day Tree Biology workshop in Cardiff on 3-5 August. He’s asked whether I’d share this news, and I’m happy to do so. Shigo’s famous touching trees workshop has been given a new lease of life by Mark since 2011. They’re sold out at every ISA Conference, and when they’re delivered in Australia. This is sleeves rolled up, hands-on laboratory exploration about how trees work. It’s a once in a lifetime workshop that you won’t forget, or regret investing your time in. Here's some feedback from ISA Conferences. “Best workshop I’ve ever been to.” “Thanks for such a well presented 3 days. Alex would be proud of you!” “Thoroughly enjoyed Mark and his team. I have been looking forwards to this class for 3 months and it exceeded my expectations.” “Comforting to know arboricultural practice is in such good hands.” “Felt like I was in college again except this time I wanted to be here!” To book, you need to go through QTRA who are doing the admin. As some of you know, I moved on from delivering and developing QTRA way back in 2016 to set up the VALID project because I thought tree risk could be done so much better. It’s odd to see there’s still a picture of me doing my stuff on the training page banner photo. https://tinyurl.com/y62ucnks Cheers Acer ventura

Hi Mick Yep, that's about the size of it. Unless you've got a repeat offender, there's no need for signs, fencing, or pruning because that would be a disproportionate response to a mind-bogglingly low risk. Cheers Acer ventura

With the sun finally putting it's hat on and coming out to play, the issue of managing the risk from Summer Branch Drop is likely to become a hot topic again. Worry not. We’ve got this one covered for you. If you go to VALID’s ‘Risk Management’ page. There, you can download a free plan about managing the risk from Summer Branch Drop. It’s highlighted in the ‘Government’ section, and included in both the Government and Landowner tree risk-benefit management packages. Cheers Acer ventura

VALID’s tree risk-benefit assessment Apps for iOS and Android devices are now available on the App Store and via VALID’s Google Drive. They’re free. It’s a bit premature because there’s a few cosmetic bugs still in there - which it’s likely only I can see having been so immersed for so long. The reason for the release is because Kent County Council had a tight deadline to adopt VALID. In order for their techies to approve the iOS version of the App (which they have), it needed to have been vetted by Apple. I’ve turned on the last page of VALID’s website (you can only see and access the ‘Community’ page if you’re a ‘Validator’) if you want to have a play with the App, go there for the links. https://tinyurl.com/yxggzpl9 Cheers Acer ventura

Cheers Mark, and look forward to seeing you there. BTW, the News* page of VALID's website is now public. There's a subscribe ‘widget’ on there for anyone who can’t make this round of training and would like to know about the next; in the UK, or anywhere else in the world. Or if you just want to hear an occasional, short, tasty dispatch from what’s happening at the coalface of tree risk-benefit assessment and management. Cheers Acer ventura *Forgot to mention, it's just got going and the most recent post is a link to a great couple of BBC audios about Confidence v Competence

Hi Kevin Good to hear from you - it's been a while since you came along to the QTRA training I ran down there. Hopefully, you can make it because I think you'll very much like what I've done with VALID. Cheers Acer ventua

Hi Khriss The AA aren’t involved. I’m setting up VALID as non-profit and it’s an international venture. To give you a taste of where things are heading. In April I was out in Tasmania helping their government look at managing tree risk on their highways following a coronial inquest into a death caused by a tree failing. On the back of that, I ran an in-house course for Inner West City Council in Sydney. New Zealand Transport Authority are also interested. You get 15hrs of CPD. Cheers Acer ventura

Hi Khriss That’s an interesting heart of the matter question. Without getting into the whole how can you inspect a tree but not assess the risk PTI conundrum. Perhaps this ‘What is VALID?’ one-sider might help. Cheers Acer ventura What is VALID v1.1.pdf

Yay! The first VALID Tree Risk-Benefit Assessment & Management training workshops are ready to go in UK Here’s the dates and venues. You can find out more details and book by clicking the venue on the ‘Training’ page of the website. 27-28 June, Staines-Upon-Thames 01-02 July, Cambridge 04-05 July, Leeds 08-09 July, Lichfield 11-12 July, Exeter 16-17 July, Bath www.validtreerisk.com Not Sure? Why not sample the goods and have a play on the App first. Email [email protected], and let me know whether you’re using iOS or Android, or both. Cheers Acer Ventura

Thought this might be of interest to some of you. It’s an updated and improved version of a Tree Risk Assessment review article that’s going out in this week’s NZ Arb’s Tree Matters, and was in Australia’s Arbor Age last month. I’ve made some alterations to the text and images to what’s going to be published so it's a better reference document. Mainly so the images are arranged closer to the point in the text where they’re discussed. I’ve also updated the App screen grabs to make them current. They include the people icon at the bottom right which lets you work out whether the combination of traffic and people means the occupancy should be one category higher. In this case, if you include people is the likelihood of occupation 1 Very High instead of 2 High? Tree Risk Assessment - Review.pdf

Woo, hoo! This has been a long time in coming, but finally this in from my tame Maths Professor who's doing the really nerdy stuff that will be doing all the hard work in the background. “…we have “stress tested” the procedure in numerical terms and didn’t find any gross, critical sensitivities… In short, in my view the mathematical basis of your approach is sufficiently robust and dependable for almost any practical purpose…” VALID's now taxiing along the runway, and the App is about to go into production for training to begin Downunder starting in February, and in the UK from April, 2018. If you want to know more about how it's going, there's some screen shots of how the App's storyboard is looking on VALID's Facebook Page. Also attached is a summary of what VALID is about. What is VALID.pdf