Uk tree protection order. Big tree in garden with protection order - any useful experience or information?

Question

we had it inspected by the tree officer from the council when we moved in, then had the reccomended 'pruning' carried out, cost £450. that was 6 years ago. The council officer said it would be ok for 10 years.

A big branch fell onto my neighbours shed this week - quite dangerous. we're going to have to call the council and have it looked at again, and its probably going to cost.

I like the tree, and we probably want to keep it but I guess we're always going to have these problems. I've heard about leaking oil/diesel tanks and copper nails, but I dont want to be dishonest or underhand about it:

I suspect it needs a whopping reduction (10% allowed last time, 2002, records show 25% in 1991) and the cost may be 000's. A few hundred quid is enough, but I cant go mad - times are tough.

But do these trees have a harvest value (I guess, wood comes from somewhere?), that would at least cover the cost of felling?

Its a giant, very old copper beech.

Answer 1

TPO: Tree Preservation Order means that you can't do anything to it without Council consent.  It will probably show up if you tamper with it and you would be in deep do-dos.

Trees do have a finite life and if it is starting to become a danger you should seek consent to have it removed. You may be required to replace it depending on council policy. You'll be lucky to find anyone who will pay you for it, rather it will be the other way round.

It may pay you to get independent advice - relying on the council tree man makes it difficult to argue with him (or her) and you are then at the mercy of their (usually expensive) whims.

Answer 2

Greetings from New York (suburbs to the north of NYC). Hey my good English fellow... Trees are growing into a passion of mine and  beech trees are one of my favorite trees. I love how they have a very unique smooth almost leathery bark.

I am an avid tree grower and we have (here in the USA)  a national arbor society which I buy many seedlings from every other year. I probably got enough of those to start my own tree nursery. We had a nice beech in our backyard ( I had to move last year after 40 years of being in the same house) That tree was awesome! And get this- the name of a public school up the road was Copper Beech School! How about that?!

Now, there are a lot of British cultural things you wrote I kind of understand but not 100 % sure. But well i saw 'Beech tree' and that just gets me going. Besides being a tree grower as a hobby I've done some professional landscaping in my day. I can tell you that from a USA perspective that if someone cuts down a tree chances are it just goes to a landfill somewhere unless the Tree removal company has connections to a guy who sells wood for fire places etc. He won't tell the home owner.

Now, over there, in the UK where forests are dwindling with  two thousand years of human impact it might be a different story. Here, if you wanted to sell a tree on your land no tree milling company would want to be bothered unless you had at least 15 - 20  75 foot tall trees. Just isn't economical unless you made it worth their while with multiple trees. As per your question of one tree covering the cost  of removal?.... I don't know if the product- wood logs- would cover the costs of labor and fuel etc of a tree removal service. I would have serious doubts- USA nor UK.

  So I guess I thought one person's experience could help you round out your perspective and let me know if anything I wrote helps you figure it out? Good Luck..... and as you say over there.... Cheerio! (BTW, We Americans naturally think of breakfast when you British say that -as in Cheerios Cereal).

Answer 3

Before you talk to the council I would recommend a quote from 2 or 3 REPUTABLE tree surgeons (thats tree surgeons that have been recommended - ask around) and ask what they would do if that was their house and tree. If you are still not convinced what the best option is, get an independant Tree Report, although this will cost a few quid and nothing is set in stone.

A 10% reduction on a copper beech is pointless.

Killing it will make it far harder and therefore more expensive to dismantle.

Ask a local timber yard if they are interested in the timber. They'll tell you on the spot. They don't mess about.

Cost depends entirely on difficulty. Thats time taken, access, how careful you need to be of other garden material, amount of cuts or lowering operations to do etc etc. But in 10 years i've never charged more than £800 for a single tree and that was enormous, dying and had to be taken out via a garage.

Hope you do the right thing.

Answer 4

I had a similar problem , - but it was an enormous Yew.... pain in the bum. Unlike you, however, I didn't feel like keeping it.

So. ........ ;-

When the recent big gales came, several of the more horrendous big branches were blown off (-odd, this-!) by "the force of the gales:".... Dead weird, but we made good the jagged scars and tidied it all up nicely.

This happened several times, and each time the gardener burned the fallen branches in logs .

We don't have a problem any more (!!)