Paul73

Thanks guys. It looks like they would be very well advised to get a clear position on this. One wishes things were black and white. Found this on the HSE site. It looks like there might be a place for experience giving competence but one would have to clearly justify it and sending the man to get a ticket is likely to be the simplest safest option. While the ACOPs are not law, they were made under section 16 of the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSW Act) and so have a special status, as outlined in the introduction to the PUWER ACOP: 'Following the guidance is not compulsory and you are free to take other action. But if you do follow the guidance you will normally be doing enough to comply with the law. Health and safety inspectors seek to secure compliance with the law and may refer to this guidance as illustrating good practice.'

I have just been asked by someone for whom I have worked many times as an Arb consultant whether his golf club is at risk of falling foul of the law for letting the greenkeepers fell trees without chainsaw qualifications. I told him I that I didn't actually know if there was a hard and fast legal position but that his club could be on very shaky ground with their insurance company if anything went wrong as "do you have qualifications?" seems to be a regular question when buying arb insurance. I can see that this could well fall foul of heath and safety at work, risk assessment and PUWER but is there actually a black and white rule in law that any use of a chainsaw in employment needs qualifications or qualified supervision? Or is the idea that people must be qualified derived from other regulations that say "Reasonable steps must have been taken to make the workplace safe, control obvious risks and make sure machinery is operated by people who know how to use it" Thanks, Paul

I have been engaged to get involved in a no doubt heated debate over a development site on which there are a large number of self sown Ash trees. I feel like I would do well to know what has been said by any government funded bodies about Ash dieback, its projected speed, and how that might impact on the concept of a tree needing 10 years of useful remaining contribution to be worthy of retention on a development site. The trees in question are on derelict pasture, mostly 25 years old or younger. Some road-side trees were recently felled under section 211 notification because of Ash dieback. Every tree on site shows some signs of Ash dieback but most are in stage 1 with only one very large old one being in stage 3. Can anyone suggest a reading list to me? Any planning policy documents I should be looking at? Any sources for the thinking behind the 10 years in BS5837 what reasons did they give for saying it? I always assumed it was not to saddle new home owners with problem trees. Cheers, Paul

£340 each, though the packaging was a bit sub standard.

Thanks gents. I still haven't taken the plunge with battery, so I ordered two Makita petrol cutters from FR Jones, where they are on for less than half price presumably because they are being discontinued. Got two because then I will have a spare. They do look good and the balance and weight is a lot better than the big Stihl.

I may just be weak but I have always liked a hedge cutter that is light and balanced. With that I can reach as far as with a heavy one and if I want to reach further I use a long reach anyway. I have usually had small Tanaka ones with 26 inch blades they seem to balance perfectly, which is just what I like. My latest Tanaka broke down yesterday and when I went on line to re-order, it appears discontinued. Today I got a big 30 inch stihl HS82 out of the garage and me and after a few hours of cutting smart yew hedges and some horrible topiary my assistant soon agreed it needed to go back in the garage again as soon as possible because the balance is very poor and its heavy. Any recommendations please for what I should buy to have a light balanced hedge cutter, ideally no shorter than 26 inches? Thanks Paul

Thanks guys. I will buy some wipes and take a wire brush a chisel too.

I am thinking of learning how to make some shingles, posts and rails because I have a few acres of overstood sweet chestnut coppice. I have had a bash and it seems not too hard to make rails and shingles quite fast but I will do a lot better if I start with some basic guidelines. I would like to learn the ideal range of diameters to start with for these products, so I can work out what to thin and what to grow on. Can anyone give me some ideas of ideal diameters and fairly standard lengths please? Also can anyone point me to a good text book on making these products? Thanks, Paul

So I finally got through all the hoops with the FC and the LPA and got permission for a new loading area and track. I went out and crashed about in the undergrowth with some tape measures, some pegs and a tin of marker spray. It turns out I was a bit hasty with the marker spray. Now we have cleared most of the trees and undergrowth, I can see that there is a slightly better line for a small bend that is needed in the track. I have marked the wrong trees here. Its no big deal but if I ever decide to have paying clients in for something like say Forest School, it looks a bit messy. I did it in bright pink because it was too horrible a colour to miss. Any tips for getting the spray off? Clearly not thinners but olive oil/ fairy liquid? and a stiff brush? Thanks Paul

Hi Guys, I am looking to buy a new truck and get a good arb conversion. Quality and lonegvity is important. Who would you recommend? I am in North Wiltsire, so its quite central southwest and the midlands are easier to reach than the far west. Thanks

Thanks Timberonabike. I don't know any timber lorry drivers. Where is a good place to look for one please? Are there any on here?

If I am right Jon, that table is based on mid diameter, so I would need to fell an average looking one to measure mid diamter or climb up it. If I am right they don't count branch wood in the timber calculations, so you need to get to the top of the clear stem height when calculating height. Probably I need more data! the forest mensutation book has a chart that needs stand basal per hectare area for Poplar (unless I have looked at it wrong).

Hi Guys, I am looking to put in a loading area at a woodland gate before taking down some trees. I am thinking to make it part of the woodland management plan. The woodland is small -9 acres. I have got an agreement to make a management plan with Rural Payments. I want to take down about 4 acres of Christmas trees and Thuja -all a bit overstood. I am in North Wiltshire. (Any adivce on who to sell it to would be greatly welcomed too!) I am wondering what you would consider to be minimum dimensions for a workable loading area that people are going to want to come and collect from -presumably with an artic? The road is a B road, so I will need planning permission, so I need to make a sensible application. The road is 5.5 metres wide. I am a little bit constrained by a telegraph post on one side of the gate (set back 2 metres from the road, so 7.5 metres from the other side) and the local lady of the manor's land starting close to the other side of the gate (11 metres from the telegraph pole). The gate is currently 5 metres set back form the road but I can move it and widen it. Can I make it fit? How wide would you make the final gate? How long and wide would you reccomend I make the loading area? If I cannot get an artic in, what is the biggest vehicle I can get in and is it practical? I know that is quite a lot of questions. Thanks for your advice.

Thanks for the idea about prunig to avoid the need for a licence Dumper. This might be tricky in this particular setting -for one thing a lot of tree top would have to clear a lot of closely packed lower branches right next to a big road but it is an interesting idea. Having given notice to fell, does that allow one to prune or is notice to fell only going to give no objection to felling not no objection to pruning? Does anyone know a clear answer to this|? I am not too clear how to calculate amentity tree volumes -they do grow differently from forestry plantation trees don't they -generally more branch and less high trunk. There are 24 poplars generally over 30 metres tall with average diameters of about 550 mill, there are 20 Leylands probably a shade under 20 metres tall on average with diameters that average around 500 mill. There must be 1.5 cubic metres per poplar and a Leyland trunk must have at least 1 cubic metre per trunk? anyone who is good at calculating volumes is welcome to improve on my estimates but there must be more than 40 cubic metres and I would hope less than 80. Thanks for your advice gents. At least I will be able to come back to the clients with some ideas.

Thank you Jon for your input. It certainly sounds like a mess and I can see why the two entities want to keep each other happy without having to change their rules. I am still not sure what to do. My biggest concern is foisting a lot of replanting conditions on my clients or changing the land classification. I am imagining it could affect the value of the land. Urban greenfield sites are valuable as assets even if you do not plan to develop them, urban woods are just holes in the pocket. I don't really know enough about forestry to know if I will have any chance of gettong a license to "deforest" the "hedge" if I apply for it and I can tell that the FC are not much intereted in me when I call them. Arb is not forestry and when we do woodlands, it is usually liability issues with roads, or improving woodland held for amenity or sporting purposes. Timber crops are about the last thing on our list. They are just not interested in us. LPAs usually view us as poachers to their gamekeepers and it can be hard to get them to work with us collaboratively to solve long term problems when they are mostly worried about having to deal with an angry entitled electorate ringing them up and complaining when we actually do something that makes a change.