Trees and Arboriculture – Page 4
BS 5837 tree surveys, root protection, method statements and Tree Preservation Orders.
Trees and Arboriculture articles – page 4
262 articlesFelling licences under the Forestry Act and planning consent
Five cubic metres a quarter and two cubic metres sold are the limits that catch most rural owners. This covers the exemptions, the overlap with tree preservation orders, restocking notices and development felling.
Trees on neighbouring land that overhang your site
A neighbour's tree can put a root protection area across your whole footprint. This covers surveying without access, reshaping the area, the right to abate an overhang and designing on precautionary assumptions.
Highway trees, section 278 works and removal consent
A tree in the verge belongs to the highway authority, and planning permission does not authorise its removal. This covers the consent route, the alternatives officers expect, valuation and replacement planting.
Shading, leaf litter and trees as a material consideration
Officers weigh daylight to proposed rooms and the risk that a retained tree will later be felled. Leaf fall, sap and an existing neighbour's shade belong to other regimes. Here is which is which.
How long a BS 5837 tree survey stays valid
Most validation checklists expect a tree survey within the last twelve months. The real test is whether anything material has changed, and on a site with ash that can happen in a season.
Can a protected tree be felled once permission is granted
Work necessary to implement a full planning permission is exempt from TPO consent. Outline permissions are not covered, necessary is read strictly, and a retention condition takes the exemption away.
How a tree becomes protected by a Tree Preservation Order
A Tree Preservation Order can protect a tree from the day it is made, before anyone is consulted. How the order is made, served, objected to and confirmed, and how to check whether your tree is covered.
Tree constraints plan or tree protection plan: what each shows
A tree constraints plan comes before the design and shows what the trees need. A tree protection plan comes after it and tells the contractor what to do. Conditions name them separately.
Hedgerow gapping up, translocation and replacement
Translocating a hedgerow sounds like a clean answer to a layout problem. In practice the survival rate is poor, the metric penalises the loss anyway, and gapping up an existing hedge usually scores better for less outlay.
Tree surveys for demolition-only proposals
Prior approval for demolition covers method and restoration only, and gives no authority over protected trees. Scaffold, hoarding and plant positions are where the damage happens.
When a planning condition and a TPO consent conflict
A permission exempts only the tree works necessary to implement a full consent. Scaffold, access and crane oversail are usually outside it, and a retention condition overrides everything.
Trees on allocated sites: getting the plan stage right
Local plan capacity figures are derived from gross area and density, so treed sites get allocated for numbers they cannot deliver. Survey at Regulation 18 stage, not after allocation.
Arboricultural evidence at appeal
Inspectors in tree cases ask whether the loss is necessary, whether retained trees will survive construction, and whether the replacement is measurable.
Retaining walls and level changes in a root protection area
Cut removes rooting volume, fill closes the gas exchange path, and a strip-footed retaining wall does both along the worst possible line. The engineering answers are different.
Street tree soil volume and why it decides survival
A tree grows only the crown its roots can support. Sizing rooting volume against mature canopy, and detailing it under adoptable construction, decides whether canopy targets are ever met.
Management plans for retained trees: what to include
Conditions requiring a management plan for retained trees ask for a thirty year regime with named responsibilities and a funding route. This sets out the structure that discharges first time.
Highway trees and the council's separate powers
A street tree belongs to the highway authority and sits largely outside planning control. This explains the Highways Act powers, why a Tree Preservation Order rarely helps, and how to report a problem effectively.
Designing drainage around retained trees
Keep excavation out of the root protection area, cross it by bore, put storage outside it, and build any surfacing up from existing ground rather than down into it.
Evidence a council needs before approving ash removal
Ash dieback alone does not justify felling a protected tree. Councils want crown decline scored against a stated system, the target beneath, and the alternatives considered.
Answering a tree officer objection to a layout
A tree officer objection is a design brief. Sort it into facts to check, judgements to argue and requirements to meet, then answer each in its own currency.
What an arboricultural impact assessment adds to a survey
The survey can be done before you have a design. The impact assessment cannot. Commission them in the wrong order and you pay for the second one twice.
Penalties for breaching a Tree Preservation Order
Section 210 creates two offences of very different weight, and the court is directed to have regard to the financial benefit the defendant obtained.
The replacement tree duty after unauthorised felling
Felling a protected tree triggers a replacement duty under section 206 that attaches to whoever owns the land, not to whoever did the felling.
Applying for consent to fell a tree under a TPO
TPO consent applications are free and decided in eight weeks. Here is what the council needs, which reasons work, and what happens if consent is refused.
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