Arboricultural assessment or landscape appraisal

These two documents get confused because both have the word tree in them somewhere, but they assess different things for different reasons. The arboricultural assessment vs LVIA question resolves quickly once you ask what is being harmed. An Arboricultural Impact Assessment is about individual trees as physical assets: their health, their root protection areas and whether the proposed layout will kill them. A landscape and visual impact assessment is about the character of an area and the views people have of it. A scheme can remove 40 trees and have no landscape effect worth reporting, and it can remove none and still change a valued view.

What each assessment is for

An Arboricultural Impact Assessment follows a tree survey carried out to BS 5837:2012. The survey records each tree, its condition, its dimensions and its retention category, and the assessment then tests the proposals against that baseline. The output is a statement of which trees are lost, which are affected, and what protection and method statements are needed for those retained.

A landscape and visual impact assessment, or a proportionate landscape and visual appraisal on a smaller scheme, follows the third edition of the Guidelines for Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment published by the Landscape Institute and the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment. It identifies landscape receptors and visual receptors separately, judges their sensitivity, judges the magnitude of change, and reaches a reasoned conclusion on the significance of the effects.

The practical difference: one is measured with a tape and a diameter gauge, the other with a camera, a map and a professional judgement that has to be explained.

Individual trees against landscape character

Think about who or what is affected. Arboriculture is concerned with the tree. Landscape assessment is concerned with the people who experience the place and with the landscape as a resource in its own right.

A line of mature oaks along a field boundary illustrates both at once. The arboriculturist records their stem diameters, calculates the root protection area for each and tells you the access road cannot cross it. The landscape architect says that the hedgerow and its trees form the defining feature of the local character area and that their loss would change the view from the public footpath to the north.

Those two conclusions can point in opposite directions. Trees in poor condition, perhaps category U under BS 5837 and due for removal on safety grounds, can still be the landscape feature that matters most, because the public experience of them does not depend on their structural condition. The reverse happens too: a block of category B sycamore self-seeded over a former industrial yard has arboricultural value and almost no landscape value.

Methodologies and the standards behind them

The root protection area is the number that drives layouts. For a single-stem tree it is based on a radius of twelve times the stem diameter, subject to the cap set out in the standard, and the layout either respects it or justifies an incursion with a method statement. This is the mechanism explained further in the piece on the tree constraints plan and the layout it forces.

GLVIA3 has no equivalent number, and that is the honest difficulty with it. The method is transparent about being a matter of professional judgement supported by evidence, which means two competent assessors can reach different conclusions on the same scheme. What separates a persuasive assessment from a weak one is the clarity of the reasoning and the quality of the viewpoint work, not the sophistication of the matrices.

Where tree loss becomes a landscape effect

The crossover happens in four situations worth watching for on a rural site.

Hedgerow and field boundary removal changes field pattern, which is a landscape character issue as well as an arboricultural one, and may separately need consent under the Hedgerows Regulations 1997.

Veteran trees and ancient woodland are treated as irreplaceable habitat in national policy, so their loss is an ecological and policy matter rather than a question of replacement planting.

Tree belts and parkland planting that screen or frame a settlement edge perform a landscape function, so removing part of a belt can open up views that nobody assessed.

And in a National Landscape or National Park, the bar moves. The Levelling-up and Regeneration Act 2023 strengthened the duty in section 85 of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 so that relevant authorities must seek to further the purposes of these designations, and the current wording should be checked when it is being relied on. In practice that means a landscape assessment is expected even for modest schemes.

Viewpoints, receptors and photomontages

Agree the viewpoints with the case officer before the photography is taken. This single step avoids the most common objection to a landscape assessment, which is that the chosen views flatter the scheme.

A sound viewpoint set covers public rights of way, the nearest settlement edge, any designated landscape looking in, and at least one close view where the development will be seen whole. Record camera position, height, focal length and date, and take winter views where deciduous screening is being relied on. A summer photograph of a scheme screened by an ash hedge is not evidence.

Visualisations need to match the level of the assessment. A wireline is enough to show whether a building breaks a skyline. A rendered photomontage is expected for taller or more prominent proposals and should follow the Landscape Institute's technical guidance on visual representation, with the method stated so a reviewer can check it.

Who is competent for each

Councils expect a suitably qualified author for both, and the two professions are separate. Arboricultural work is normally produced by a consultant registered with the Arboricultural Association or holding a relevant professional qualification. Landscape assessment is normally produced by a chartered member of the Landscape Institute.

Both an Arboricultural Impact Assessment and a Landscape and Visual Impact Assessment are report types where professional review is strongly advised, and on a contested rural scheme an unsigned assessment carries little weight with an inspector. Where a draft is used to structure the document, the survey data, the viewpoint work and the professional judgement still have to come from the qualified author.

Which one a council asks for first

Check the authority's validation checklist, because the triggers are local and they differ. The usual pattern:

1. Any trees on the site or within influencing distance of it, or any tree subject to a Tree Preservation Order, triggers a tree survey and an arboricultural assessment, down to householder scale.
2. A conservation area tree brings in the separate six-week notice procedure under section 211 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.
3. A landscape assessment is triggered by scale, by a landscape designation, or by a site that is prominent in long views.
4. On an EIA development, both feed the Environmental Statement, with landscape and visual effects usually forming a chapter of their own.

Where budget is limited on a small rural scheme, the arboricultural work is almost always the one to do first, because it changes the layout. A landscape appraisal written before the layout has responded to the root protection areas will have to be redone.

The honest caveat is that some authorities ask for a landscape appraisal as a matter of routine on any countryside site, and arguing proportionality after validation has stalled is slower than simply commissioning a short appraisal. Ask at pre-application stage which they expect, and get the answer in writing.

You can see where both documents sit alongside the rest of a rural application pack in the full report index, or enter your postcode on PlanScope to get a recommended document list for the site.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.