I own a house which is in an area covered by a Tree Preservation Order. The house is rented out to tenants and I live abroad.
There are two extremely large ash trees at the front which absolutely tower over the house. One of these is mine, one belongs to a neighbour. These trees were there when the TPO was issued in 1965 so they were probably quite large even then. People always ask for a diagram, so it's already attached, a 3D view from Google Earth!
About 3 years back I got consent to have them both cut back (including the neighbour's tree at my expense), but when I came back to the UK to look I felt that I could barely notice the difference. I believe that the tree surgeon did as much as he was allowed to do under the TPO consent, just that in my book it wasn't nearly enough.
Back in the early 1990s there was a storm and a tree in nearly the same position as No.5 fell. It ripped out my fence and left a hole 1m deep and about 2-3m wide immediately outside my back door. So there is "previous" on trees falling nearby in bad weather.
Given the number of major storms we get these days, my big concern is that one of the trees, probably my neighbour's tree, could fall on my house, if it fell in the same direction as the 1990s one. The top of my house at the front is timber framed with flat roof. So not very substantial compared to the weight and size of a falling tree.
I'm concerned that if my tenant was sleeping in that room when the neighbour's tree fell, there would be a real risk to life. Worse, it's not the main bedroom but would probably be used by kids.
But I'm really not sure what I can do about it, given that (a) the tree doesn't belong to me and (b) the council refused to allow it to be cut to a level that I believe would minimise the risk. Generally, my local and parish councils are absolutely fixated on trees and there are a lot of TPOs around here.
Apart from hoping that the trees catch Ash dieback disease (which is in our area) what can I do? I don't even know if my neighbour who owns the tree has any insurance, or what that would cover if someone was killed. But my main issue is that the council is putting me in this position by not allowing the tree to be trimmed enough. It really wants pollarding, not crown reducing. But TBH I would prefer to take it down completely.
Thoughts? If the neighbour's tree fell, and my tenant was injured or killed, who is liable to whom, for what?
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Can't cut dangerous trees due to TPO - whose liability?
15 replies
filka · 14/10/2019 21:15
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