oak trees with TPOs removing crowns and dead wood plus thinning

realspeed

realspeed

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Bazza
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Well don't the local council, where we are, really make an effort to do their job to the best of their ability ? like heck they do. Yesterday at last spoke to the planning officer that signed off on our tree situation. Tried at 9am-10am- and most of the morning All I got is a recorded "sorry the person to wish to speak to is not available at the moment"
Eventually manage to speak to her mid afternoon and guess what? she works 3 days a week.
How on earth can anyone conduct any business like this when they are never there.
when I did get to talk to her she asked how much would I suggest the trees are pruned by. The application clearly stated remove 25% over all. she she can't read either so it seems

The next time she will be there is next Tuesday , that is more than disgusting it is disgraceful when they should be there to help the public.

On top of that the planning application for tree work even the company who are going to do the work could not make it out

The application had this added by the person who came on behalf of the council
for oak classed as T1

T1-1mtr crown reduction of branches ( the trees about 90ft tall),
how on earth can they climb up 90 ft to cut off a mtr length of a branch let alone on the width.

Oh it doesn't finish there

IN para 2 he quotes a reference to BS (british standards) 3998:2010
well I looked that up and it states
quote

“The general principle [of Crown Reduction] is that, following reduction, there should still be a strong framework of healthy small-diameter branches and twigs (leaf-bearing structure), capable of producing dense leaf cover during the following growing season." unquote.

It to me is plainly obvious he has not got a clue as he contradicts himself a few lines down on the page.


NO doubt they have been to uni and got an "OLOGY" qualification but not in common sense'

there is even more

We asked a company to send in the application for the work on our behalf, which we paid for,not to actually carry out the work. The council seem to think that is the company doing the work but we have no contract with them for that, only to make the application in" professional talk" so to speak, for which we paid them £90.

that apparently is now also causing confusion, As far as I am concerned once the application has been approved (which took 9 weeks) we can choose which company can do the work.

like hitting your head agaist a brick wall.

To be honest by the end of this week what I intend to write to her and say " as we have heard nothing more we take it you accept the 25% reduction and now instructing the tree surgeons to go ahead as per planning application." any alteration/objections by yourselves to this may well incur our legal fees on this matter. That should be a kick up their bums
These are the trees in question

and the council guy suggested just removing 1 mtr off the branches :headbang::headbang::headbang::headbang:
 
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I got told "Just because a tree is dead doesn't mean you can cut it down." also he couldn't tell me which 4 of the seven cherry trees had preservation orders on them.

Didn't go down very well when I said I would just fell 3 at random then.
 
My parents had 3 TPO protected trees in their garden a few years ago and they cost them a small fortune in maintenance. When Dad sold up after Mum died, Fastbuck Abbey bought the house (via a nominee since they knew Dad wouldn't sell to them) and the trees vanished.
 
Nod

I have been looking all this up. There are different conditions about TPO's and church grounds under British Standards 3998 and The Town and Country Planning (tree preservation)regulations .
 
It's not in church grounds.
 
Maybe it still come under church control which is why?
 
Possibly. I know they get away with all sorts of dodgy planning, not to mention some VERY dubious practices during the '60s and '70s...
 
the guy who came here to inspect is another box ticker on a sheet of paper. We had the same issue when we had our own business. Tthe problem today is they have to stick within guidlines and not allowed or can't to think for themselves. It is such a pity they don't/can't/won't teach common sense at uni level , maybe because those doing the teaching don't hve any themselves.
I can forsee we won't be having any work done on the trees as it is impossible to just cut off just one mtr length from any branch, as you can see if you watch the video above in full screen.
 
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Frankly I would have chosen a single company to apply for the paperwork and the do the cutting, and then referred any later issues to their liability insurance.
 
Mozthecat said:
Frankly I would have chosen a single company to apply for the paperwork and the do the cutting, and then referred any later issues to their liability insurance.
Click to expand...
the company we originally contacted as you suggest did the paperwork for which we paid for seperate contract. We had no contract for them to do the work when they originally quoted nearly £5000 for, other companies are quoting around £1500 which is why we are not goikng back to them.
further to this i have just had a long discussion with the council guy who did the accessment and agreed to come back although he is one of these that go by the book and not common sense.

To give some idea of what I am battling against first look at the video in the original post then try and understand why he suggested over the phone to use a long pole to take a single
mtr off the top of the crown. If anyone can tell me how anyone can achieve this I would love to know.

what is more annoying is we are pay a considerable amount in council tax to employ a case worker who only works 3 days a week and a (field inspector) who makes stupid suggestions. When comes back later on this month my wife myself and next door neighour will be here to confront him and hopefully the company doing the work
 
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Been doing a lot of research since last posting and came across this " Occupiers Liability Act 1984". This overrides any TPO's issued under local council which gives me permission to make the trees safe re sccidents.
to my mind it the local coiuncil inspector says no then he is prevention me from carrying out what I deem necessary, and therefore breaking the law.
 
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UPdate

Had a site meeting with the guy from the council and from my point of view didn't go well. Typically a tick the box kind of guy and didn't want to give an inch. eventually after some discussikons and pointging out other statutes in Law he gave a little to the extent of arranging another meeting to try and come to some sort of an agreement on reducing the size of the oak trees. So hopefuilly a little bit of success after I would not give way either
He softened up enough when i pointed out that I had asked for the original plans and documents regarding the application to a apply tree preservation orders and the council fail to do so within the time lime the council set
this evening I received from him this informatikon

Now the odd thing is our house was built in the mid to late 1980.s . The TPO plans are dated 1993 , several years after the property was built.

So now I want to find out why they were submitted years after the property was built and who submitted the them
 
update

Just now the guy from the council came back and we have some sort of victory over how much branch reduction he will now allow. He wasn't going to until I showed him the previous application allowing a lot more reduction. He has gone back to see about a 10ft ( instead of only a 1 mtr overhang ) reduction over all (top and sides) and removal of dead and dangerous branches. I also was armed with the legal right the council have to revoke or amend the submitted application .

What I think has happened is I gave him all the legal documents under various acts of parliament to take down the trees or have them severely reduced . He must have gone back to the council legal department and my guess is they told him to compromise

Just goes to show it pays to do homework, keep records and any previous documentation, to be honest it made him look a bit silly. He even allowed the 4th tree to be included

Just got to wait now to see what if any planning application the council allow
 
Anyone got the number of the guys accused of removing the tree at Hadrians Wall? Problem solved.
 
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