WWYD council tree damaging our garden wall.

[AngieM2]

Hoping you guys can advise me. Will try to keep it brief as possible. Lived in the house 10 years. House is 120 years old. Long front garden with wall at the bottom leading on to the street, properties either side have the same wall. Very large tree on the pavement, council property and were in a TPO area. Council have only lopped the tree tops once in that time (2010). Our front wall is suffering some major cracks right in front of the tree. The tree roots are massive and come right out of the ground and have cracked all the pavement. 18 months ago contractors came out and dug up the pavement around the tree as street lights on opposite side of the road were out and the contractor said the tree roots had wrecked the cabling. We wrote to the council (who passed it to their legals) to ask them to deal with the offending roots and cover the cost of rebuilding our wall. Our argument being that if the roots are able to undermine street light cabling on the other side of the street it's reasonable to assume they are the cause of the damage to our wall. They have come back to me to say they don't agree, they have shown me an 'engineers' report which says why they don't feel it's the tree causing damage but on all points I was able to refute their evidence. But still they disagree. Council legals will only reconsider if I pay for excavation work which refutes their evidence but I'm very reluctant to pay for an engineer which could be a very costly exercise and will involve excavation work on their property (the pavement) - not even sure if this would be allowed anyway. Have since had a couple of builders out to quote for the wall repair and they agree with me that the tree is definitely the problem. So where do I go from here? PS also need to add that 4 months ago the council wrote to our neighborhood to say they were repairing pavements in our area, all pavements marked out but when contractors got to the tree they stood there for a long time looking very confused about what they were going to do with the tree roots (and agreeing that the tree roots were causing problems to my wall) and abandoned the job and have never come back

I would suggest you take plenty of photos and see if you can get an engineer from the highways dept (usually county level if your authority is two tiered) to come out to site.

I would suggest you try the council's tree team (if they have one) but if it's a street tree they'd probably send you back to highways again anyway.

And are you able to excavate a small trench on your side of the wall? You might be able to get down to the roots just with a spade. If you can, take photos and measure the diameter of the roots.

You could also get your local MP involved and on your side.

This happened to a friend of mine. Council slapped a Tree Protection Order on the (completely unremarkable) tree. If they thought this would get them out of any liability it didn't work - the wall was listed. My friend won, and got his costs, though he'd rather not have had to go to Court. The tree is no more.

I doubt your wall is listed though.

Do write to the council saying you have fallen hard on the uneven pavement outside your house, and are concerned that others may do so. Send it registered.

Get in touch with your local councillor if you haven't already! They are elected to represent YOU! Ours was great when we had a similar (more minor) dispute with the council. They couldn't just pass her off!

Get a builders quote with a reasoning that the roots are causing the damage. Take photos. Excavate a small trench in your garden if you can to show the roots and take pictures as evidence. Take these plus your council's letter to your local councillor. This will help your councillor. Also realise that councils have lost a lot of money in the cutbacks, they are making staff redundant and shuffling priorities so they must do anything they can to avoid extra costs like this.

Thanks for all your great advice. I do have lots of photos and we feel that its so obvious the tree roots are a problem. I was concerned by their engineers report as it seemed so flawed it was as if they hadn't even been out to see the wall at all. One comment was that the soil was not clay based when it actually is, so if he cant even recognise the basics....I will certainly contact my councillor as this has been going on 18 months now. Also, even if I was inclined to just have the wall rebuilt at my cost (2 builders, 6 days) it does not address the issue of the protruding tree roots that will keep growing.