Chris at eden

Looks about right to me. Nice bottle butt symptoms.

Never heard that one before about the licenced product. Where is that from? Is that the one Dealga runs? I have done the mortgage course through CAS and treelife and neither mentioned a fixed price. In fact the CAS one talked about a band of between x and y, cant remember the exact figures. I would prefer not to discuss DD's prices although he does freely do so himself on the course but I did one a few weeks ago where a company had quoted £500 plus the VAT. There was about 8 trees so less than an hour onsite. maybe half a day with writing up and travel. Cheers

Barrel did a paper earlier this year linking summer branch drop to old occluded wounds on limbs which have hidden decay / dysfunction. Don't see why you couldn't apply the same logic to the trunk with the bulging being the result. As Jules said also, the change in the damping characteristics may also play a part. Cheers

I spoke with Dave Dowson about this a year or so ago when I had just finished my L6. He said he gets calls every week from people who want a report from a registered consultant. His advice to me was that over the next 5 years I should aim to get chartered arb, expert witness and AA reg consultant. His logic was I will be 45 by then and so have 20 years working at the top of the industry which in itself is rewarding but you would also be earning a good living. Based on that I am not concerned about the membership fee. Another point worth considering is that his mortgage reports cost 65% more than mine so that soon pays off your costs I would think. On the flipside, I read somewhere that Arbtech turned over £1m last year and they are not reg consultants so it depends on your objectives. Pure money vs. professional recognition. I personally prefer the reg consultant route and will be aiming for that. If and when I get the time that is. Good luck. Cheers

The arboricultural association produce a leaflet on career options based on level of qualifications. For L3 you will be looking at tree surgeon, junior tree officer or tree surveyor most likely. In reality the arb industry is so low on skilled/qualified staff (before I offend anyone - there are lots on here but not enough to meet demand generally) you can push for higher if you apply yourself. I landed a job a few years ago which required L5 and at the time I only had L3. CTC and arbjobs.com have opportunities abroad. If you have any problems finding them ping me an email and I will send you the links. Email on my website. Where are the L3 student from? Cheers

It makes no difference. This will be a section 154 notice ordering the tree owner to cut back the tree to provide adequate clearance over the highway. They will see as a safety issue and if you don't do it they will do it for you then take you to court to recover the costs. If the tree decays and becomes dangerous they could serve you with another notice telling you to fell it. Same process and perfectly legitimate.

Nothing special about them. Level 6 isn't hard in terms of the level, just a lot of work. If you put the effort in you should be ok. The difference with my L6 and someone doing full time uni was, I was working full time as a TO, I was starting my consultancy business from scratch, and my son was born 3 months into my first year. Not enough hours in the day. Actually there was, I just didn't watch TV or have a social life for two years. Doable though if you want it enough. I would imagine a lot of people on here are in the same position with working and studying at the same time and families to support. That's what makes it harder.

Yes I know. I agree with that view. I went off on a bit of a tangent when I got to the end as I thought of the old experience vs. qualifications debate and thought it worth mentioning. Probably should not have done it while responding to your comments as a quote as it looks like I was commenting on a point you hadn't made. Sorry about that.

I would agree with this particularly if you are talking about plant science which would be better acquired from a lecturer than from working as a tree surgeon. The majority of people doing degrees will complete these prior to gaining any kind of experience in whatever their field. Yes you need the underpinning knowledge but that is why the QCF is built on levels and courses have pre-requisites. Surely? You will never come out of university knowing everything but if you have a good academic grounding then surely this must enrich the experience you then go on to gain. I personally have always found that experience vs. qualifications argument to be a little superfluous. Surely you need both.

I shall bow to your superior knowledge of Scottish legislation then Jules. I assumed it would be pretty straight forward like the English regs. i.e. the 2012 regs supersede all others in England so the exemptions mentioned in there are the only ones you need to worry about. I'm glad in not on the border and have to work to two separate set of rules.

The majority of the advice given here (including mine) is from the 2012 regs which doesn't apply to Scotland. Jules is the only one that looked at the Scottish Act as that is his area. If in doubt, download the legislation and check the CA exemptions for yourself. They are easy to understand and will take you about 10 mins if you skim it.

I haven't done FdSc but I would agree with the comments. FdSc is L5 and so too much of a jump from L2. There was a lad on the first day of my L6 2nd year who went straight from L2 against the advice of the tutor who said do L4 first. He only came once as he quickly realised the jump was too much. You have two choices really. 1. Do an L3 arb course such as national diploma and then go on to FdSc. 2. or, go on to L4 and then L6. You are probably better set up for this route with doing L2 first. I did this route with tree life and would highly recommend it. Cheers

Interesting post.

It was the brown leaves which I assume are from the scion, the bark, and the buds that made me think Amelanchier. No idea what the rootstock is, looks more like thorn to me but the pick's not great. They are both Rosaceae so I suppose either could work. I'm no grafting expert but I would think it would make more sense to graft onto thorn than Sorbus. Could be wrong though.

As Paul said, they should be measured at 1.5m not DBH which is 1.3, a forestry measurement. I'm pretty sure this is discussed in regulation 15 which covers CA exceptions within the regs. In the case of multi stem trees you use the thickest stem, if that is over 75mm then a notice is required. If they are below 75mm then not. You can increase this to 100mm in some circumstances. .e.g. thinning woodlands.

Amelanchier, I think.

Possibly jumping the gun slightly. Sounds like you have completed stage 1 of the VTA process (visual check for defect symptoms) but you would need to go on to 2 and 3. i.e. quantify and evaluate against the failure criteria. There may be several options when it comes to recommendations but you would just need to justify them. If you are saying fell then you would need to give good reasons. e.g. t/R evaluation, target, etc. You could equally come back with crown reduce (but how much by would need to be shown) or conduct a more detailed investigation. e.g. Picus or resi-PD drill to quantify. As long as its reasonable and you can defend it. If you had a partial root plate failure and you recommended crown reduce you would probably struggle to justify that but there is some flexibility with lesser defects. In terms of type of trees. I did mine in 2006 but at that time we had to inspect 10 trees all of varying condition. I don't think I recommended felling for any of them from what I remember. Hope this helps Cheers and good luck

Good idea with the reckless issue Ed, they did it for the wildlife legislation so why not. To be fair they change regulations all the time with as you say the 2012 regs and before that the introduction of the one-app, and so on. Then there was the change to fines on summary conviction now being introduced to TPO's via a completely separate piece of legislation earlier this year. So it can be done, and should be. The fact that felling a tree without consent (or exception) is an offence, but none compliance with the notice that secures its replacement is not an offence just does not makes sense. A five year old could tell you that!!! It make you wonder who writes this stuff. :confused1:

Sorry, slight typo there. Min depth on low shrinkable would be about 1.55m for the OP, possibly reduced to 1.4m. Again speculative. Same caveats for my comments.

The apple trees would be irrelevant in this situation. Apple has a zone of influence (ZoI) of 7.5m so at 40ft (12m) its not close enough to be an issue. I would think that the foundations were specified with the sycamore in mind which has ZoI of 16.5m and with the soil being classed as highly shrinkable with an MPI of 40%+. That would mean with the sycamore in situ the foundations would need to be 1.4m (4.6ft) @ 12m distance and 1m (3.3ft) outside of the ZoI. Under no circumstances should foundations be less than 1m on highly shrinkable soils, even if there are no trees present. That ties in roughly with what the inspector said. Not sure where the site is but you could possibly reduce the depth by 100-150mm based on climatic variation if you are in Cheshire but not below 1m so possibly down to 1.25m at the closest point. As for the OP, the foundation depth would depend on soil type but if it was low shrinkage then they could be as shallow as 750mm. High shrinkage they would possibly need to be 2.35m deep at that distance. To the OP. This is fairly speculative on my part so don't take this as professional advice as I have not been involved in either sites and my comments are based on very limited information. To echo what others have said get a tree consultant involved.

You would think so wouldn't you but people still try to get out of the replanting as long as possible. So 10 site visits later and 10 letters if you are lucky the tree goes in. If not then you have to go in and plant the tree yourself and hope that you can recover the costs. LPA legal departments are not big on taking risks and in reality the local authority doesn't have the resources to do that anymore. If when you turn up o plant the tree the owner prevents access they are subject to a £1,000 fine. Why not put that fine on the none compliance of the TRN? Obviously give them every opportunity to do it but ultimately if they still refuse, hit them with the fine and then say you still need to replant. That way it ends up costing them more, so an incentive. Just my opinion but it takes the responsibility and cost away from the LPA and puts it back where it belongs.

If that is the builder taking care of the tree I would hate to see him trying to get rid of one. Don't see how you can retain this tree long term as even if by some miracle it survives the dominance and nuisance issues will be horrendous. Even if its subject to a TPO and the council refused to allow felling, you would most likely win on appeal. Another point to consider is that if the building is a breach of planning the LPA may refuse to discharge the planning conditions. This can create issues when you come to sell the house. Un-discharged planning conditions tend to make solicitors and bit twitchy. Not always, but sometimes. Be carful, speak with planning to makes sure the boxes have been ticked. I don't see how planning could have consented this layout with the agreement of the tree officer.

Best comment on the thread. Spot on.

Not quite. Refusals and conditions are ultimately still appealed to the secretary of state I believe but the majority are then delegated to the pins automatically. The SoS can jump in at any point though and take over. Unlikely with TPO's though. TRN's are not conditioned. To do so would be maladministration. TRN's are served in accordance with section 207 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 when it appears that: a replacement condition has been ignored the duty to replace in accordance with section 206 has been ignored. the duty to replace in accordance with section 213 has been ignored Sorry to be picky.