AaronN

To give you a bigger picture of the area I have attached a plan showing the surroundings. We own all land titled as open public access and this is true apart from when the arable field is seeded (we then expect the public to walk around the fringes), all other fields are grazed. As for official public rights of way, they are indicated by a red line.

Once again Thank you for all the replies and I'm glad to see that this thread has helped out other Arbs. To give you all an update (should you be interested) I have found a development application for the site which was refused in 2010. Within this application the tree was not in a location which would have hindered the development (see attached image showing our tree T13). However, I believe that what they are going to apply for next is/was probably hindered by the location of T13 i.e. they want to construct within the RPA. Because of this I would say that the remaining trees around the site are at 'Risk' and therefore warrant a TPO. I have contacted the LPA asking that this be considered as a matter of urgency. Watch this space - I will update should we have any success in penalising the developer/owner.

My colleague has taken several photograph's but I am due to return to the field with a better camera! and some measurement tools for scale. I'm pretty sure this won't be a straight forward case but I'm keen to pursue any way possible (The attached photo shows the points in which it was pushed and I'll get some better photo's showing the trenching)

Thank you both for the information. I can confirm that although it is a hedgerow tree it is within our ownership (although it could be argued that it may be jointly owned)(especially as the root plate has slide towards their land) The tree has been pushed onto our land and the land I question is just north of Milton Keynes within South Northants I think that we currently need to wait for the Police response so they can gather the "evidence" and witness statements (unfortunately the contractors are no longer on site)

Afternoon all, I'm looking for some advice regarding a tree of ours which has recently been trenched around and pushed over by contractors working for a developer/owner. The particular site does not yet have any form of planning application and they are just clearing the site ahead of outlined planning; because of this the LPA are unable to assist. The tree in question is/was a mature hedge row Ash with a Helliwell value of approx. £34k. It is very evident that a mechanical digger has dug around the root plate and pushed the tree over (bucket marks all up the stems and soil displaced) I'm wondering if anyone has dealt with anything similar and what they were able to do about it? (We are currently awaiting a response from the local Police force, but I'm sure that CPS won't be interested due to the value) Thanks in advance