Chris at eden

No don't let me put you off. Its an amazing experience and really life changing but part of the experience is attending the groups. Its really hard to stay on top of the work if you want to get done in 2 years but you can take longer if you wish. The meeting up with the lads is really motivating and you can exchange ideas albeit not collaborate but I think it would be a hard lonely experience doing L6 on line. Plus there is an excellent bacon butty shop opposite the tree life training centre.

I did L6 as day release and it was hard work to stay on top of the work. No TV or social lift for two years. The pass rate is about 30% with treelife, less elsewhere from what I hear or at least it was in 2014 when I finished. I think you would need to be seriously driven and committed to do as a distance course.

No problem. Where are you based?

If you are looking at working on the TPO tree for reasons which relate to risk management then you are required to provide written evidence from a professional. If you are unsure then you may be best to sub it out in the first instance as that would give you an idea of what others are doing. I do loads of sub work for tree surgeons round my way, seems pretty common practice. What is your current level of certification and insurance out of interest? If you are doing tree reports you will need professional indemnity and for that the insurance company will need to check your certification.

Yeah I love it. They have started to introduce annoying characters though, that bloke with the stick is a liability so I find him irritating. I like all the twists and not knowing what to expect or who they are going to kill of next. I've never known a show to kill off the main characters like it. You wouldn't want to be an actor in that, not exactly a job for life. Great viewing though, roll on feb!!!

Great thread. Sorry for jumping in late with the comments. I'm off to France tomorrow so I'll get some pics and post if I see anything interesting.

Very nice.

You mean like RVT?

Not according to 3998!

Good post. When I did my L6 a couple of years ago we had to write pruning specs for a number of operations and then critically evaluate. Dave Dowson commented later that across all of his groups there was a real lack of understanding of pollarding with modern arbs. One of the big issues that was identified was that the production of pollard heads and regular cutting actually reduced the risk of decay and extended longevity due to the high levels of phenols contained in the parenchyma cells that make up pollard heads. People knew this but still commented that cutting could introduce decay, couldn't help themselves, me included. People still cant help relating them to the topped LA street scene. How many street trees do you see in the UK looking like those in your first photo? Not many.

Monoculture can be anything. Its the growing of a single species within a group. Street full of planes, field full of carrots, etc. Ginkgo is a monotypic genus or monotypic taxon. Only one species in existence within the tree's genera. Ginkgo biloba is the only one, there is no Ginkgo spp. Aspen isn't monotypic as there are lots of poplars but it but it could be grown as a monoculture, as a woodland plantation for example.

That's where the problem lies. That's not pollarding, its topping. As such it gives pollarding a bad name. Mick's examples look good though. The old 1989 version of 3998 used to say that pollarding was synonymous with topping!!! Probably didn't help.

Thuja

As we like to over complicate in the UK there are actually 9 levels. To complicate further these are 1-8, with an entry level on the bottom. No idea what would be wrong with 1-9! Entry - 2 is high school. 2-3 is further education. (it does overlap) 4 - 6 is higher education with degree being L6. 7 is MSc and post grad dip. 8 is PhD. I've always fancied a go at the ISA master arb. Where does that sit on your framework? You not a fan of TRAQ then?

I did ISA and NC Arb back in the mid and late 90's respectively and I would put them at about the same, so L2 in my view. I don't think its anywhere near tech cert but then again I don't think the ND arb is either. Probably why the new version of TC is considered to be L4. It always was in my opinion. I remember having the same conversation with the treelife team about 10 years ago and they were of the same opinion.

Because the regs are about TPO's. Planning permission in its various types is covered by the town and country planning act 1990. When they are talking about planning superseding tpo's its not a good way to think of it. Outline doesn't actually consent anything in reality. Even if you show access and layout and have them approved you cant build it until you discharged the reserved matters which would likely be scale, appearance and landscape. Once you discharge the reserved matters you have consent to build. If part of the approved plans for the landscape RM shows tree removal then this has been consented by the planning department.

That is a strange one as only trees which are removed in contravention or under exemption based on condition are automatically protected (i.e. section 206). If you remove and condition replacement the applicant could: a) appeal the condition. b) or, ignore the condition and appeal the TRN. The council would also need to either serve a new TPO or vary the original at which point there could be an objection to the new order. Not sure if you could object to a replacement tree but its is essentially still a new tree and so I guess so. If they did it through planning then you could still condition replacement which would again come down to appeal. Same thing really.

Spot on, good description. Obviously if the plans agreed at reserved matters show the trees to be removed.

Outline is affectively part of a planning application with the reserved matters being what is let to complete. So if you discharge them all and one covers tree felling which is approved this would supersede.

Outline does not override, only full. You can't agree outline and all of the reserved matters at the same time as that would then be full. The reserved matters are a bit like conditions that you have to discharge to then convert into a full planning consent. So for example. If you go for outline including access and layout that would be a plan view showing where the houses and roads are. The reserved matters would then be scale and appearance (what they look like and how big), essentially the elevations, sections, levels, etc. Another reserved matter would probably be landscape and the 5837 work would probably come in with that, they may create a separate condition though. At that point if you discharged a reserved matter that covered the trees and this showed the tree to be felled that would supersede the TPO but not until that point. You may also go for pure outline which is just the principle of building on the land. You couldn't do an impact assessment at this point as there is no layout and so no way of knowing the impacts. TPO's are a constraint and their removal would be an impact and so it all ties together as you progress. Hope that makes sense? Cheers

Not sure David just relaying what the trainer said. You will note though that I said they are taking out all their old bracing systems, not they have taken them out. I took this as it is an on going system of checks with the old steel ones going and replaced if required. Part of the focus of the seminar was that bracing was overused and in many cases did not need installing at all. Also that quite often it gets installed and then just left with no appropriate checks. They were using Kew as a good example in how they were going back a re-examining what they have done previously and changing if need be. In my experience that doesn't happen on other sites. Apologies if that didn't come across properly in the first instance. Do you do much bracing at your place? What do you use?

No mate, no examples of failed systems but they were massively plugging the product as a fall arrest system. I.e. if the tree does fail it doesn't hit the floor. I see so many of these things fitted incorrectly, too low usually, or massive horizontal subsiding limbs braced to a 200mm leader. Bonkers really. It wasn't cobra though, it was the other one that looks similar, I forget the name. They had a solicitor there also talking about the legal implications and dismissing the myth that if you brace you are leaving yourself wide open. Like many things its about what is reasonable. They briefly touched on the fact that Kew are now taking out all their old bracing systems. Apparently they had some strong winds through and they broke quite a few of the old steel braces but the trees stayed up. Did say though that some of the braces were very old which would obviously contribute. Cheers

I went to a seminar a few weeks back. They were pretty adamant that steel bracing is a thing of the past. Didn't even have any in the lecture or the demo. Also the most recent findings are that even cobra bracing has a significant impact on mass damping and does not allow for the formation of adaptive growth in forks. It actually increases the risk of cupboard door failure if used to secure compression forks. If used on horizontal over-extended limbs it kind of waggles the fork in the opposite direction to the tip if that makes sense. They suggest bracing horizontal limbs closer in to the trunk to counter the effect. The speaker (for this part) was Mac who runs the TRAQ qualification for CAS and the ISA. Mostly based on Mattheck's work I believe. Bracing is a bit of a dark art if you ask me.

From what I remember AMIUG was absorbed by CAS although I think Dealga still runs it in the old format. Hand augers and all that. I wouldn't mind doing it actually, the soils element is supposed to be excellent. Cant hurt to do all 3 that are on offer either.