I fought the TPO, and the TPO won

It will come as no surprise to anyone who may have read a few of my blog posts that I am firmly on the tree preservation side of the arboricultural scale. To the point of, admittedly, being biased more towards trees than humans. And generally, I think tree preservation orders (TPOs) are a good thing; in fact, you could argue that they don't go far enough, and that all trees should have statutory protection.

But today, for once, I visited a site and found myself supporting the client's point of view. He wanted to renovate a stable and use the surrounding small patch of land as a paddock. Surrounding the site's border were mature sycamore, ash and horse chestnut, which the client appreciated and seemed keen to keep. However, within the middle of the site were early mature, scrappy sycamores. Squirrel damage had left them looking rough; they were all slender, with high crowns containing a significant proportion of deadwood. There were basal wounds, presumably from a vertebrate of some description, exposing the inner wood.

The client had approached the council, asking he could remove these. He offered to replant native woodland species on site. But, he was told that he would have to plant 3 for 1 to replace the trees, due to the TPO on site. Now, I can see why the mature trees were TPO'd. But the self-set, poor quality sycamores? Really?

Sadly, the side of the story I got (and, admittedly, it was only one side) was that the Local Authority refused to budge. Surely, instead of issuing a blanket TPO and advice, they should have realised that this man is trying to improve his patch of land, by planted a varied and native mix of trees; but because he wants to remove poor specimens first, this isn't enough. For once, I support someone who wants to remove trees, because ultimately he wants to improve the overall treescape on this plot of land. Instead, legislation designed to protect trees, and so implicitly improve our environment, seems to be preventing this from happening. I'm not arguing that TPOs are wrong - far from it. But I just see it as ironic, and frustrating, that in this instance, a TPO is being used to prevent someone improving the tree stock on their land; blindly following protocol has led to a rebuttal of someone's good intentions.

Jumping the gun

I had a tricky and thought provoking pre-development survey site visit today. The brief was, simply, to visit a site and assess tree cover in light of a potential planned development; the client wants an idea of whether or not the amount of trees he wants to fell will cause an issue with the council, and hold up or throw his development out of the window.

This client made the error - sadly, an all too common error - of coming to us with a proposed plan already. Now, in theory, you decide to develop a plot of land, and you get all the relevant surveys done - including our arboricultural one - and identify constraints. So, arb-wise, we might say "you have trees x, y and z that can be felled to make space". Then, you design a proposed plan, and have an impact assessment done - "well, the impacts are that you might compromise tree a, but trees b and c will be unaffected". You then re-design or tweak your plans until it satisfies all involved, and then submit it. In short, you build around what's there.

This client gave us an exact plan of his housing development, helpfully doing our job for us by telling us exactly what trees he'll keep and what he'll get rid of. Then, can we go see if it'll pass planning? Based on what we say, he'll maybe ask for a tree survey to identify what constraints there are, and then - oh, wait. Got confused here. You don't really care what the constraints are, because you've already decided what you're building and where.

Sadly, this happens more often than not. I am finding more and more that, with development surveys, we have to write to the tree officer more than the client - finding a way of saying, subtly, "this client wants to remove these trees. I think they are worth retaining. Please can you make sure they retain them as part of planning permission." However, since we are hired by the client, we have to sneak this request to make their life harder for them past their noses. But try we must, because many clients already know what and how they want to build, and merely use us to satisfy planning application requirements. And so we tell the tree officer that their plan impacts trees that shouldn't be impacted, because the clients don't want to listen.

On this plan today, very few trees on the site were retained. And yet, on site, there was significant tree cover, including a fair number of impressive beech and oak that, in my opinion, were undoubtedly retention category 'A'. Now, if our client had bothered to do things properly, we would have told him this and he could have thought careful about his design, retaining impressive trees that would enhance his housing development. It's not enough to vaguely indicate planting and landscaping - yes, the next generation of trees is important, but using them to justify felling mature trees is equivalent to thinking it's perfectly acceptable to kill someone's dog as long as you buy them a puppy.

Deciding that you're going to go ahead with a set development without identifying existing constraints - be they arboricultural, ecological, cultural or anything valuable - makes a mockery of the sensitive and sustainable development that should be the norm, not the exception. I already know that my advice is going to be: let us - the arboriculturalists - decide what trees should be kept. Then, design around them. Simple, really.

Feeling compromised?

Today's post finds me returning to that same old theme - development vs conservation. And whether, as a professional, I should compromise my own ethical and environmental beliefs in the light of the money that development work brings in that, ultimately, pays my wage and those of my colleagues.

Whilst, in theory, I conduct a development survey purely as a snapshot in time of what is on a site, tree-wise, before any development is planned, the actuality is that developers already have an idea of what they want. Whether it's a detailed plan of their new driveway or two houses, or just the knowledge that, somehow, they want 100 houses on that plot of land. And so, if I throw a spanner in the works by strongly advising that this tree or that group are retained, these people are unlikely to be too chuffed that their 100 houses drops to 99 houses, or that their new driveway has to be moved, and become longer, and cost them more.

In my eyes - and I realise that I am at quite far down one end of the environmental spectrum - trees (and generally flora, and fauna, and greenspace) are priceless. They cannot be costed; who has the right to say that building a house and making a profit off that is worth more than the retention of a valuable, living organism that provides shelter and food to a host of other organisms? Not to mention the mental benefits of trees for humans, and the ecosystem benefits (cooling, pollution attenuation, and so forth) the general treescape provides. How this can be weighed up and valued against profit is beyond me; in my eyes, one cannot, morally or practically, put a price on trees. 

However; I work for a private company. Our job is to work for clients; clients who, sometimes, want us to give the nod to them to remove trees. Clients who, if they get a report from me saying "sorry, but I strongly advise against building here because of this tree" may then decide not to use the company I work for, and go for someone else. Someone who may have slightly lower standards, and play the development game more readily. And so, I lose my company clients, we shrink, and livelihoods are at stake.

There's also the argument that if I push myself out of business, then I can't save the trees that really matter. If I fight so hard for retention of anything that I see valuable, then we won't be consulted in the future, and other sites with valuable trees may go to other consultants who may give the nod for chainsaws to go in. In other words, should I throw some to the wolves so I can keep fighting for those that 'truly' matter?

So far, I have refused to compromise, and I like to think I won't begin to do so. I won't downgrade a tree if I believe it is valuable and worthy of retaining. Don't get me wrong; I won't kick up a fuss about every tree I survey; so in the respect I am already, slightly, pragmatic. But that is irregardless of what plans are for a site; if a tree is of poor quality, regardless of where it is, I will say so. Likewise for those higher quality trees.

But I vehemently believe that this capitalist, profit-driven culture that economic growth and "development" (at the cost of truly sustainable resource use, environmental preservation and social economy) is completely absurd. It can only go on so long before we're up against the wall, whether you're rich or poor. And the little slice of this unjust economic system that I'm most obviously exposed to professionally is these people wanting to get richer at the cost of the environment around them (specifically, in my line of work, trees). People who see a profit on land, where I see connected habitats, hedgerows and veteran trees. People who see a plot of 200 houses, where I see an open woodland habitat. And why should money come before conservation? There is not one good reason, in my mind, that it should.

However... how long before I come under pressure to give a little? How long before I over-ride my morals for the sake of our company's reputation among these wheeling and dealing, money-driven clients? I hope I never do... but then, what if it was my job on the line? Or more importantly, those of other people? I hope I never get stuck between these two opposing forces. But the fear that I might is weighing on my mind. And the disgust at this greedy, exploitative, careless system that I am periodically exposed to leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

The Grey Men of Grey Mare's Tail

It wasn't until I read Wildwood that I became aware of the existence of Green Men - the faces of leafy men carved into wood, with paganistic meanings and variations on the theme individual to each sculptor.

http://commonground.org.uk/portfolio/trees/

At Grey Mare's Tail in Dumfries and Galloway, someone has created the stone version. The Grey Man.

I'd love to know who, and why. Probably done on commission to the Forestry Commission, as part of their recreational side of Galloway Forest Park, the romantic in me instead likes the idea of an artist who just wanted to make an unobtrusive, secret statement. To carve faces into stone, and then set them in the stone walls of ruined mining buildings, noticed only by a few people wandering through and careful enough to realise that the stones aren't quite natural. A short-lived artistic statement, like Richard Long's work; faces that gradually become weathered and lichen-clad, until no longer recognisable as any different to any other rocks.