In a message dated 07/11/2007 13:01:29 GMT Standard Time,
Paul.Casey@xxxxxxxxxx.gov.uk writes:
Not sure how the reduction works are linked to the highway clearance works?
I'm not saying this is a real life situation. But imagine the owner has
proposed to remedy the highway clearance by taking the admittedly rather
drastic
step of removing the tree. This effectively saves him the ongoing expense of
pruning (admittedly minor) this tree every couple of years. The proposal to
remove is prevented by a TPO which he tests by appealing. The whole
situation
is not of his making, he's obliged to keep a tree that he doesn't want and
he's obliged to commit funds to ongoing maintenance.
This particular imaginary situation is a difficult pruning job that will run
to 4 figures. Removal would be a similar figure but a one-off. Inspectors
opinion that the alternative of pruning is not an unreasonable expense is
culled
from a couple of decisions I've seen and to my mind depends on whether you
think 4 figures is unreasonable. I've got a sneaking suspicion that 4
figures
would be seen as reasonable for a developer, less so for Jo and Joanna.
Mynors ponders on subsidence damage and forestry value only touching on the
subject of pruning expenses. The impression you get from him is that this is
a
fairly obvious expense that he presumed would be a consideration in the
original TPO deliberations.
If it helps try and imagine telling farmer Joe Grundy to raise the crown of
a tree over the highway whereupon Joe wanders out with his borrowed JCB and
dozes the thing straight over into the field. "Whaddyathink I am, some sort
of
simian? says Joe when confronted by the irate Tree Officer. It sounds
reasonable to me when put like that, less so if the removal would have been
a
complex LOLER operation.
As for muddying the waters; as it 'appens I won a recent appeal over just
such a thing. I'm not saying the expense of pruning was the only issue, but
nonetheless the Inspector agreed that the Council had no right to demand
extensive pruning. I wish he'd been a bit more forthright about it as it was
couched
in Inspector-speak, but you can't have everything.
I am fairly regularly surprised by some TOs who seem to think they can spend
a tree owners money as they see fit, especially if it's a developer.
Bill.
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