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.