Gajendra

Hi, both of these trees were not in-front of our driveway and because we wanted the driveway so we had to pay and it was £650 each.

Update: I had the council's guy came to dig the trial holes £650 each and guess what there were NO tree roots!! Finally I will be allowed to have the drive :) I am just waiting for a official confirmation now. What a results finally after 13 months!!

Afternoon all, thanks again for all your help so far it really means a lot. I was just wondering if anyone has experience of Screw piles and Suspended Slab option? When I was doing some research I came across this and it looks interesting! https://arboraeration.com/tree-roots/airspade-investigations-and-foundation-design/

Thanks for getting back so quickly really appreciate it. You sound like someone who know what he is talking about, and you may not be able to answer this but I am going as anyway 😁 in your expert view how likely would there be a roots that are within 3m from Lindens tree and 2.5m from Maple tree that can jeopardise our plan? Thanks

Hi Juels, Thanks for your response. I am willing to pay towards the investigation but the email from the Asst. Director of Highways says it is highly likely there will be roots on our pathway. Well there's obviously going to be some sort of roots there could be from the council trees or could be from our garden trees. Do you know if there any rules on what size roots and how deep council will dig to investigate this? Thanks

Although this is a very tempting option I know someone who got parking ticket for doing the exact same thing 😁

Evening all, it has been a while since I have posted any update here. I have been going round in circle. I have complained to anyone and everyone that I can think of. Finally I have received a reply from department of environmental bla bla bla to say they will allow me to hand dig (trial hole) and if there are no roots available then I would be allowed to install a dropped kerb. This option is not cheap but it is still an option I guess. On the email they have also mentioned that the success rate of going down this route is very slim. I don't know if anyone here are the tree specialist who has experience of this procedure? Thanks ps. I have attached my plan that might help

Thank you for sharing your experience. I have been going round from person to person still no joy. I just had a reply from department of environmental bla bla bla to say they will allow me to hand dig (trial hole) and if there are no roots available then I would be allowed to install a dropped kerb. This option is not cheap considering I will still have to pay for new driveway and dropped kerb. On the email they have also mentioned that the success rate of going down this route is very slim. I don't know if anyone has any experience of this procedure? Thanks

I did offered him the job but he said he's not getting involved 😂

Thanks Julian, what does this mean for me? Are you suggesting that council could still tell me what is done is done and I still have no chance? If that is the case I might as well get someone to install the dropped kerb and tell council to go after Virgin first then come to me haha

Update: Yesterday, Virgin media came to install new cable for us and guess what they started digging the pavement!! I asked them how come they were allowed to dig and they said they have permission to dig from the council. They dug about 1.5ft deep, surely I don't have to dig that deep to install dropped kerb. I have sent a new email to council with all the pictures let's see what they have to say about this.

Update: I have submitted my appeal. Let's wait and see what happens. There were 45 trees on that roan and 40 of them had dropped kerb within 1.5m from the tree. I know LA will just say that was done before the legislation got changed but how can changing something on a paper in last few years will save those 40 trees if this is wrong? Maybe I am naive but I just don't get it. The distance between two trees is 9m and I only want to build 2.4m dropped kerb in the middle of these tree. Fingers crossed LA will offer me some lifeline.

No they haven't, they just said I can't build any dropped kerb!

I think planning is not needed but I do need to get approval from highway I think. Here is a email that I received.