Council damaged my 25years old tree.

[DamagedTree]

Contractors are doing some repairs on a common wall between our property and property belonging to the council. They have asked for access to our garden so they can erect scaffolding and start repairs. We gave them access as requested. All was well until, over the weekend, we discovered they have cut half of branches of our japanese maple tree! It's a mature japanese maple at least 25 years old, likely more.

The tree was not in a way of scaffolding. It could have been easily built around it. The only reason I can think of as to why, is it was easier to cut it than walk and build around it.
I had contracts manager and representative from the council have a look at it and they admitted it should have never happened and apologised. They are asking what compensation we want. Offered to plant another tree.

The problem is this will really impact on the landscape of the garden. It's a prominent feature of the garden providing shade in summer and if they plant a new one it will not be in the same place and will take YEARS to go anywhere near a decent size.

At the moment they are arranging a tree specialist to have a look at the cut one to ensure they haven't actually killed it. Also we won't provide access to our property until they prove to us the have provisions in place to prevent it from happening again.

I don't know what I could ask for in terms of compensation. I really loved that tree. AIBU to ask for money?

I think its reasonable to ask them to replace with the most appropriate replacement possible - I'm not green fingered, so no idea if you are better off with a younger, smaller tree or transplanting an older, bigger one.

But I think just keeping your existing tree and just asking for money would be a bit off. Either the tree can be replaced (which they should pay for) or it can't, in which case money won't bring it back.

In reality, in a year or two, surely the branches will just grow back? Presumable you prune it every year anyway. So with the normal pruning and reshaping it would recover over time, no? But as I said, I've no idea about gardening, so I might be wrong about this.

Oh wow, damaged yours must be huge! I love a big, mature tree. I would certainly be telling the council that's what it'll cost - they presumably will be making use of their liability insurance.

Compensation paid to the OP won't come out of another budget, it'll be covered by insurance and the council's contractor will have to stump up.

If you are getting a replacement tree, insist that they also include the necessary aftercare to get the tree established. It will require significantly more water until it gets well rooted. It may also require additional (but short-term) support until the roots get deep enough into your soil to prevent it from being blown over. You may also require a stone mason to lift your surrounding stone work to enable the butchered tree to be removed and the new one installed and to replace it once the new tree is in place.

I think gettingo ne the size of yours may be very hard. Is it possible the branches they removed on one said might grow back and perhaps you could cut back those they left on one side to get it looking a bit better balanced on both sides (unless that means you are even more over looked or something) and they pay for those tree works plus say pay £5000 in compensation as it might be impossible to buy one exactly like your current one in terms of size and a pity to destroy and replace it (unless they have damaged it so badly it needs to come down - they might have their own friendly tree expert who will pretend yours is beyond saving to make things simpler for the council so do be careful).

I do wonder what sort of idiots do some of these building or repair jobs. I'd be extremely upset if I were you. I just visited someone in an executive one off build and one of the issues they have is the turf. It needs taking off digging down, ground levelled before relaying as you can see the rubble.

I'll be watching for an update, good luck

The council will claim against the contractors insurance so it won’t come out of any council budget (eventually).

You need a like-for-like replacement of type and size in the same position. You will have an issue as you have a listed building and if the stones are original will be covered by the listing (and important part of the fabric of the building and it’s setting.

Are you within a conservation area? If so the removal of the existing tree will also need consent.

So what you actually need to put you right is the tree, and for the council to pay all costs in order to facilitate the replacement of that tree - whether that be pre-app costs for the historic building officer to visit, conservation area consent (if that’s still the terminology) and the installation of the new tree making good any impact on the stones.

This is an important lesson for the contractor to learn.

On top I’d be asking for the turf or additional compensation to cover the inconvenience to you and your family if you have to go through the process. And consent application will cost money (for plans), time and stress - none of which was necessary but for the fact you were trying to be helpful.

This is a really sad situation but you simply want what you had before the tree was damaged. Either the tree can recover and you want specialist support to make that happen. Or a like for like replacement hang the cost to the contractor.