Chris at eden

I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to park in front of a dropped kerb even if it fronts your own drive.

It’s not a blanket decision. They have given RPA dimensions. They have clearly looked at the details. You can’t put in a crossover without lowering levels and this may damage the trees.

Soak-aways under drives are not straight forward. They can’t be in RPAs or within 5m of a house. Building regs. It’s easier to make them drive porous or grade it into a border so surface water stays onsite.

Or if you intend to discharge surface water off site by grading the drive into the street, or into a standard storm water drain.

Councils can and do make decisions in accordance with adopted policies.

Speak with your TO I agree with but don’t go in with the view that this is what you pay your taxes for, it will just alienate them as they have heard it all before. Your taxes fund the TO to represent the council. They are not required to or even permitted to provide you with technical solutions. That is for the applicant to provide and the a TO to assess.

In response to some of the comments: planning is only required on classified roads. Not on residential streets. You do need consent of highways though and they usually fit it (you pay) as you have to strengthen the footpath to protect underground services from passing vehicles. If you put a drive in and then just drive over the path without a kerb it’s a £1k fine standard. if the drive is more than 5 square metres, and it will be it will need to discharge surface water onsite. Porous, soak-away, etc. Otherwise it will need planning consent. as it’s in the RPA it will need to be no dig. The celweb sub base will need to be at least 100mm think on top of which will be the wearing course. The finished surface will probably be at least 200mm higher than the road and you will need to get it down to meet the road ideally without digging, not possible. With the level change planning may say it’s an engineering operation but I doubt they will. If they do it will need full planning. Highway may have issues with proximity to the function. you can’t claim precedence for planning because the neighbour did it. Planning apps are considered on their own merits. Situation may differ while others may be historic. Not sure about highways. some highway departments may let you pay for an investigation but there are no guarantees that the results will be favourable. I’m not saying it can’t be done but you have some hoops to jump through. Chris

The RPA can be amended with justification but the 20% bit isn’t relevant. I used to be the you could just do it but some people were offsetting RPAs in the direction of roads or other areas where there would clearly be no roots and then building right up to the RPA on the reduced side. In that instance it would be a reduction in the a RPA. When you now amend the RPA it’s to reflect ground conditions, so to move it away from a road or building. You can’t just offset it and say it will be fine and the tree can tolerate it just to get a building in. It has to be with the trees benefit in mind, not the building. Sometimes if I get an app where the building is say 5% into an RPA I will say the impact will be low as the lost roots can be replaced on the other sides. I would show it as an incursion and then recommend mitigation by hand digging and root pruning under supervision. More often than not that will be accepted. I would never try to hide it as an offset and just say no impact and I wouldn’t try it with a 20% incursion. In that instance I would recommend re-siting or engineering solutions. Cheers chris

There is no such thing as an RPZ, it should be either: RPA - root protection area or, CEZ - construction exclusion zone. RPA is as described above but there is no standard 20% offset anymore. That was from the 2005 standard. And there is a different calculation for multi stem trees. RPA should be circular unless ground conditions dictate otherwise in which case it ca be amended to reflect likely root morphology. CEZ is the area you fence off. It’s usually based on the RPA as RPAs tend to be bigger than canopy spreads. But if you have and RPA of say 10m and a canopy spread of 10 - 12m you would extend the protective barriers around the bits of the canopy that are bigger than the RPA. So the CEZ can sometimes be bigger than the RPA. Any hard surface in the RPA will need to be no dig and ideally porous and should not cover more than 20% of any part of the RPA that as previously soft landscaped. It’s too far for me but you probably need someone to write a method statement and spec for the surface. Cheers Chris.

Rioja is the only red I drink these days - Campo Viejo is a decent cheapish one. Get the orange one if you can rather than the yellow legal. Much nicer. There is a more expensive one at about £16 but I have only had it once.

I went through a wasps nest with a strimmer when I was a trainee back in the early 90s. I just thought it was bits of grit hitting me at first so carried on for a bit. it was the 90s so PPE was shorts and shades. Visor, that was about it. I then saw the wasps and legged it over a fence onto this OAP complex, you know the council bungalow areas. I ended up in the middle of these bungalows wearing just my boxer shorts with about 60 stings. Caused a bit of a raucous to be fair. lie down in the van for an hour and you’ll be fine is what the chargehand said. I had to go and get the trimmer first though. 🤣

You would have to be going some to get over that retaining wall with a car.

Based on the tree species I would say it’s possibly the desiccated manky remains of an old chicken of the woods bracket. It has a yellow tinge where you have cut into it as well. With the caveat of - fungi are really not my thing though! cheers chris

Ps. Tree wise - the Dicksonia’s are cool. When you walk through it fells kinda Jurassic. Not technically trees but still pretty cool.

The jungle garden is awesome. I hope you have caught it in time while it’s still all green and lush. I would defiantly recommend it. Enjoy.

If they dislike it that much you could try to make a case to fell and replace it with something more suitable. Birch maybe. I personally think that makes more sense than topping the thing over and over again. This was pretty much always my approach when working as a TO. There is no such thing as a heavy pollard and heavy topping will destroy the amenity and introduce decay. There is no benefit to it and the tree would be worthless. Once topped the owner could argue that it has no amenity value and the TO will know this so they may be reluctant to allow it. If you replace it with something that better suits the site and is in a better position then that will convey future amenity so meet the criteria for TPOs. You can try to sell this idea to the TO, they are not all bad. I know a few that are a nightmare but then I can say the same about consultants. A lot will depend on the individual TO but only up to the point of appeal. And, don’t be afraid to appeal if you think you have a case. Remember, the TO and planning inspector should address all concerns in your statement of reasons so make sure you set out the case well. You need to try to demonstrate that the benefit of removing the tree outweighs the loss of amenity. If you look at it now objectively and think that it doesn’t, then you don’t have a case. If it does outweigh the loss then show why on the app. Don’t just think risk, think public visibility (can you see it from the street and does it look nice or not), longevity, impact on living standards, etc. Think about the same issues for the replacement. If the current tree has low visibility then can the replacement be planted in a more visible spot. If so it will convey better amenity. Cheers Chris

I’d give that a miss, it’s unlimited now.

The fact that is an app and they have to give a reason would suggest TPO.

I’d love to write that into an amenity assessment under the heading of cultural value and the read it out at committee. you have a point though. The coexistence of the tree and building should be considered at the application stage. Problem is, planners don’t see it that way. If it can be built without killing the tree then they tend to be in favour and the TO would have a fight on their hands getting them to move the building. They then wash their hands of it when the new owners are banging on the TOs door.

P.s. LA experience is also very desirable if you are going back into the private sector as a manager or consultant.

They are looking for someone that is trained as a tree surgeon but if you go in and get your head down you may get the opportunity to do higher qualifications and progress to TO. That is what I meant. Not all councils invest though so it’s a risk. I moved from the private sector to local authority at the end of 2002 and took a slight pay cut. I did my ISA in 2003 and was promoted to chargehand Arb. Then did tech cert in 2005 and started working as junior TO the same year. I then transferred to a different LA in 2010 as planning TO with a big jump in pay. They then put me through level 6 dip between 2012-2014. This allowed me to start my own consultancy business while still working for them. None of this would have been possible if I had carried on working in the private sector. The pay cut I took was for about 2.5 years but it has allowed me to progress higher up the ladder in the long run. This is how I would view career development in an LA setting. It playing the long game. I wouldn’t just dismiss it as the pay is a bit naf in the short term. Cheers Chris.

Re the OPs original question. As others have said, I would work initially with an experienced tree surgeon to learn the ropes. Maybe as a subby so over time you can reduce the days doing that and start picking up your own work making the transition gradually. It will take a while to build up your client base. good luck.

I think working with professionals and skilled trades will teach you different things than college. But training will give you a solid base to build on. It will also give you an indication of whether the folk you are learning from are actually skilled. Folk on this site are good and have an interest in doing things properly, otherwise they wouldn’t be on here. But there are some proper dodgy tree folk about. College won’t make you a top tree surgeon though. That comes with practice. I’ve never really got that training or experience argument. Why not have both.

Senior management make a decent living but it doesn’t match the top jobs in the private sector. But then public sector pensions tend to be better. You get flexible working and 30 days holiday plus bank holidays. It’s not the holiday camp people think it is though. Heads of service are in early and work late. It’s good for training and experience to spend time in the public sector as well. For example. I work as a tree consultant and do a lot of work on development sites. My time working as a planning TO gives me a decent understanding of how things work in an LPA. Plus, they funded my qualifications. I would have struggled to do it myself in the private sector.

The whole single status thing is a myth. Councils went through job evaluation in around about 2008 to make sure that workers get the same pay for similar jobs. There have been a few planning TO jobs come up near me recently. Four LPAs within 25miles of each other. Exactly the same job. Lowest paid was 28k. Highest was 36k.