Adam M

So the tree officer not only becomes judge Judy and executioner, they also have their cake and eat it.

Unless the area was seriously lacking in trees, I'd probably let this one go.

Absolutely. In fact, when I posted the tpo, I added an attempt at humour based around counting the rings but decided what I'd written wasn't as humerous as it was in my head so I deleted it.

http://webapps1.poole.gov.uk/mapthatdocuments/TPO_documents/TPO1/0/0181.pdf Not only an area TPO, but a 59 year old area TPO.

https://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/17361841.tree-felling-at-parkstone-golf-club-the-saga-continues/ Unhelpful update. The suspense continues.

Someone kindly pointed out that the burden of public consultation (100m2) could be anyone within 6m of the tree, rather than within 100m of the tree as I initially thought.

Have I?

I went through this with my team yesterday. The consultation side of things shouldn't affect us a great deal as we only carry out works in accordance with our tree safety policy so would rely on the exemptions a great deal. Plus we don't have much in the way of what they define as street trees. No nuisance abatement exemption though (think street trees implicated in subsidence). If the path or a statutory undertaker's pipe is knackered then they're apparently fair game. The reporting side and mandatory tree strategy side of things look burdensome though. Recording numbers of trees felled/planted on development sites? Ouch. Smells like tax returns later presented as league tables. Delegate that to the arb consultants to report on on satisfactory completion. We have a strategy already and I'm in process of reviewing so not too bothersome but for those without, will government make money/resource available to draw up? What if they don't? It's a good thing ultimately but I can see councils with a single tree officer (or less) tearing their hair out.

The excemptions would get you off the hook for most consultations. The ones you'll have to bother people about would be the ones where matey has complained about aphids and the local councillor puts their weight behind nobbling the aphid mothership.

Could just use the FC's website to look for whether any felling licenses applicable. (lol ?)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6501127/Exclusive-golf-club-faces-investigation-cutting-36-protected-trees.html Looks like a case of proving/disproving the presence of a felling license. Unsure why this has made the national media.

I see what you mean now. Is there any point in pushing for a case to be heard at Crown Court then if Magistrates can bosh out a fine of their choosing?

Yes, that was my understanding.

Was stood on the towbar of a really ghetto forwarder on some rather uneven ground, lifting a load of ash stems. Forgot to put the legs down and got a bit keen with the lift and the forwarder started to roll in slow motion. I had to jump off in the direction of the roll while the bastard thing tipped over.

Annex C (from memory) describes severe crown reduction. Its quite feasible that the works can be in accordance with 3998.

Chuff all (2400) as the developer had a nice piece of paper from one of our planners telling them no protected trees on site. Helpful.

Thanks Edward, I can see your workings. You might be right. I had this discussion with a judge in the Magistrates a few weeks ago and he told me I was wrong about his ability to only fine up to £20k. I didn't want to upset him so agreed to disagree.

I wasn't aware that the Magistrates could impose an unlimited fine. I was under the impression that would be the point of referring to Crown? Happy to be corrected (if you could point out the section in legislation that would be much appreciated).

It wasn't me who said about cons areas although I do agree, to an extent with what was said. What you lose is the ability to impose conditions e.g. replanting or standard of work. For the latter, you need to really nail down the proposal specs to compensate. But, you might find it difficult to argue expediency where the trees are protected by a similar mechanism. If you were using tempo, you wouldn't be scoring above 1pt for expediency so would have to be high scoring in all other parts of the assessment. You might want to consider what you actually want to tpo then work out how you go about justifying it. It might not suit you to use tempo as a standard.

Not really in answer to any of your specific questions but here's some thoughts, in no particular order: The lions share of that task will be ensuring that all those who must be notified/consulted are served a copy of the new tpo's and notified when an old one is revoked. If you have an admin team available who will prepare lists of addresses and land reg for owners, then print off all the necessary papers, stuff the envelopes and serve them correctly then that's fine. Do not underestimate how many people you need to notify but don't let that be a reason to not review your tpo's. I'd start with your area tpo's, generally working from the oldest to the newest. The exception to this might be with relatively recent area tpo's on large, incomplete development sites but where you are able to accurately map trees so they don't end up plotted in the middle of roads (say, if you manually plot them and don't have very good reference points to map them from). The reason for this is that you can significantly reduce the number of owners/occupiers you need to serve to. Once that is done, the tpo will show up on land searches so the solicitors can do the legwork for their customers. Once the land is divided up into individually-owned plots, this task becomes more burdensome for you. Use your planning system to sift through old tpo's and applications. Back up using Google maps, bing maps and Google streetview. Look for trees which have been felled. Work out what was supposed to be replaced (by condition) . Make a note of unconditional fells, check they were felled, revoke the tpo's if all trees on them felled. 'The Silver Birch at Post-War Household Tree Preservation Order, 1953' is unlikely to still be there and I bet they didn't comply with the condition to replant in 1967 either. If you have one, train your admin team to sift through all of your original tpo's and check all of the essential components are there. Pages go missing over time. Look for incomplete tpo's (e.g. no evidence of confirmation, no site plans) and put those to one side. Check the details and see if the pages turn up in another folder. Consider resurveying and/or revoking. Get digitised if you haven't done already. If you have online mapping through your council, you should be able to link scanned copies for download directly off the map. There's loads of other important things to do but this is just a few thoughts from recent experiences.

I love a good birch reduction. I've got a few estates where the real pro's and learned householders have had a bash at it. They're a thing of beauty.

It begs the question, what's the smallest infringement which anyone has stood up in court and addressed the magistrates with? And did the magistrates raise an eyebrow about it? And what fine was imposed? (if any). I'll start the ball rolling: storm damaged Italian cypress and a topped Norway maple in a CA, on a site with outline planning permission where the developer got a bit ahead of themselves. No eyebrows raised. £4500.

Even if it's not one for the courts, the LPA could hassle the owner into replacing it as is their legal duty.

I reckon you'll get at least one resident complaining that yew berries are poisonous and that they have to sleep in the other side of their box whenever its windy because it moves funny and has a dangerous lean.

Can't have those dead people sitting in the shade. They'll have their lights on all day and it'll play merry hell with their vitamin d deficiency.