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Hello everyone, given I have been looking on the web for answers for days unsuccessfully, I thought I'd try my luck here. We are building an extension at the back of our house into our garden. After many back and forth, the council finally gave us approval if the following condition is met: -------- Prior to the commencement of the development an arboricultural tree report and tree protection plan shall be submitted through the submission of an application of approval of details to the Local Planning Authority. The details submitted should be in accordance with BS5837:2012. Reason: To safeguard existing trees on site and trees at neighbouring sites Reason for pre-commencement condition: These impacts can arise at any time -------- Rather happy about this outcome, we went ahead and hired a company to produce a Arboricultural Method Statement. First surprise was the cost, I was expecting £500, ended up paying £2,500 but I digress slightly... The massive surprise was the amount of work the report is saying we have to do prior to the construction work commencing, things such as: - Cutting down 3 trees, one of them is fine as it is close to the new foundation, but the others are at the back of our garden, 20 meters away from the site! - Demolition and excavation needs to be supervised by an arboricultural consultant. - Ground boarding needs to be provided - Protective Fencing need to be installed Not only all of this seem super excessive (and costly!), but more importantly, I am not interested in implementing all of this, I am happy to take a risk and potentially damage some of the trees in my garden. None of them being under Tree Protection Order by the way. The trees from the neighbours are far from the sites so nothing to worry about on this front. My questions are: - Am I being the victim of the company I hired for the AMS and they are trying to upsell me more services down the line? - Do I have to follow these recommendations to the letter? Or they are just recommendations and I am free to ignore them? Note the report is phrased in such a way that I am not allowed to commence the work if their instructions are not followed. (edit) I forgot to add I had a conversation with a representative in the company that produced the AMS and they mentioned that although none of my trees are under Tree Protection Order, the fact I am now going through planning application, it's apparently the same as if they were all under TPO...which means we have to comply with everything in the report. I have to admit something does not quite sound right to me....

Does someone have an up to date risk assessment for winching operations that I can use?