Looking for some collective wisdom here...
The company I work for own a significant number of trees within a town, we also own a number of publicly accessible pavements/footpaths/walkways.
We've had some insurance claims go through, where people have tripped over tarmac that has been lifted/cracked/damaged by tree roots - not on a path but on a tarmacked strip of land between parking areas - so now we need to action this to prevent it becoming a recurring issue. I have suggested removing the tarmac (it is completely unnecessary anyway) to discourage people from walking on it. But the raised tree roots will still be there and still be a potential trip hazard.
I'm sure i've seen some LAs use white paint to denote areas of uneven pavements, yet I have tried to look online for info on this, and whether it is defendable in terms of liability if someone trips over the roots, but I cant find anything! Have I imagined this? Does anyone have any links to precedents? Does anyone have any suggestions or solutions? Of course, money will always be a factor in terms of engineering solutions, and we do remove the worst offending trees where no solution seems to exist but frankly we would fell probably 80% of our tree population if we ended up felling all the trees causing significant damage which obviously we do not want to do!
FOR CONTEXT:
When the town was originally developed over 50 years ago, a large number of Poplar, Silver Maple, London Plane etc where planted, and in many cases in places that were only ever going to cause problems... We (the company i work for) own the majority of the housing estates including footpaths and some roads (most roads are adopted). We have an awful lot of trees that cause major damage to hard surfaces, paths, paving etc. BUT we dont have a replacement planting budget (i get away with what i can RE planting but not too much). There are talks of a long term replacement planting plan (getting the right tree in the right location) but i dont expect this will happen any time soon.