Forgive me if I have misinterpreted other people's comments on the BS draft,
but I have an uncomfortable feeling that two entirely separate issues are
being wrongly confused. In my view the classification of trees on a
proposed development site is an entirely different process to deciding
whether those trees merit inclusion in a tpo, and should be treated
separately.
A development site appraisal requires the assessor to consider several
different factors (life expectancy, current and potential visual prominence,
contribution to the wider landscape, wildlife habitats, mechanical
integrity, vitality, presence and value of targets upon which trees might
fail, conflicts with the built environment or other land use, numbers of
other trees and their maturity and any cultural, historical or other special
values), balance these various attributes and rank the trees in a
comparative way that is consistent across the whole of Britain.
Assessing trees for their suitability for inclusion in a TPO requires an LPA
to consider those same attributes in a local context, taking account of
current tree and woodland strategies, development plan policies,
supplementary guidance, local politics, local landscape character,
availability of resources and the like. Inevitably, these inputs will
differ (sometimes quite considerably) from authority to authority. What is
deemed suitable for inclusion in a TPO is likely to differ from area to area
with no obvious consistency across the country (and rightly so).
I have no problem with one process informing the other but equally, neither
should dictate the other. Both should be completely separate processes that
need to be considered on their own merits. I have a real problem with
trying to combine the two into one process in the context of a British
Standard.
Maybe that's why I'm having such problems getting my head around Table 1 of
the draft standard, which appears overly prescriptive, excludes some
important factors (eg the impact of trees on the built environment and
residential amenities)and appears to attach too much weight to some factors
(the inclusion in the 'B' category of 'trees situated internally to a site
having little visual impact on the wider locality')
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