UKC

A local property developer appears to have had some lifted. This ,of course, is somewhat puzzling . A local campaign group is looking into what’s happened and at the moment  I have very little information . I would imagine that if the tree is unsafe then it would be sensible but other than that ? 

You can pay to have TPOs lifted too. How much depends on a variety of factors.

I've recently had a successful application to take down a group trees covered by a TPO.

Ash dieback is present and the trees overhang a lane as well as power and telephone lines. I want to take them down in a controlled manner rather than the risk of injury and disruption if they fell down naturally.

I don't know anything about removing TPO's but all the designs I've carried out for large developers have the developers trip over themselves to work around TPO's so I just assumed it was almost impossible to have them removed.

The H&S safety reasons do make sense.

Surprised to hear that it can be done otherwise outside of compulsary purchase orders etc

From what I remember of TPOs, it's generally fairly easy to get one put on, but pretty hard to get one removed.

As stated by others, if work needs doing, then it's possible to apply to your local council and they will send someone to assess and carry out any required work. I've had this done on safety grounds on a couple of trees with dead branches that were overhanging our garden.

As an arborist... is it possible to prune them with consideration to prevailing wind and avoid felling them completely? The most up to date advice on Ash dieback is to preserve as many as we can. Some are recovering and proving resilient. This could well avoid the devastation mass felling is causing to Ash population.

Understand liability could be an issue for you however.

Check with the council planning department. If there is a TPO on a tree, then permission is required to carry out ANY work on it (including pruning).  It is possible that permission has been sought and granted, but it's worth checking.

It's been a while since I was involved in anything TPO related but I always thought that they were permanent. In that, even if the tree(s) needed to be removed for safety reasons the TPO remained and a replacement tree(s) would need to be replanted. The new tree would then carry the TPO forward. 

I expect in some situations it might eventually be necessary to remove TPOs as redevelopment and/or other additional planting might make them unnecessary. 

Work to tress - including felling - subject to a TPO can be done through the planning system subject to a “Section 211 notice” to the relevant local authority.  This would be the normal route rather than removing the TPO which would be very unusual.  The effect of the TPO is to require the landowner to notify the council and give their tree officer a chance to prevent the works.  In my experience inviting the tree officer out and seeking their input before filing goes a long way to a hassle free process.

If there has been a grant of planning permission for a building that has TPO coverage on the land to be built on, the planning permission supersedes the TPO and the tree can be felled without a S211 notification.

I think the first thing to do is to determine what sequence of events has actually happened rather than taking what’s being said as gospel.  The relevant planning portal is the first place I’d look a specifically for planning permissions and S211 notifications.

Thanks for all for input . I think wintertree ( how apt ) has it . As a poster who imho tends to post stuff he/she that they know about I “think “ this is correct  . Which seems to mean that planning can over rule a tpo ? In which case …….imho : . what’s the f£&king point ? 

I sometimes weigh in on things I don’t have more than an opinion about!  But I’ve spent more time dealing with tree paperwork than I’d like.

I assume the planning committee have to give due consideration to TPOs when making a decision on a planning application.  I haven’t quickly found any guidelines for this but if anyone can I’d be interested to see.  If the tree is processed in to paper to make brown envelopes and bank notes I suppose it’s a kind of circular economy.

A TPO on a group of trees here was recently reduced in scope due to the planners not implementing it properly - they hear the field within the trees was going to be developed and slapped on a TPO without doing a survey.  The developer then got his friendly arborcultural consultant to do a survey which miraculously classed the trees the developer wanted to get rid of as 'U' (of no value) and hey presto, the TPO was reduced to not include those trees.

TPOs are like heritage listings from what I can see - they don't necessarily prevent work being done, they just ensure permission is sought and subsequent works respect the reason for the listing/TPO.