Tree Report Consultant

You’ve had a tree survey undertaken. Your planning application is in. And the local planning office have asked you for more information about how you intended to protect and retain trees at your site of proposed development. (As an aside, you could do worse than call Arbtech—who to date have a 7 year record of 100% success at planning for tree consultancy services.) British Standard 5837 ‘Trees in Relation to Construction–Recommendations’ asks for the design team to procure the advice of a tree consultant in respect to often highly complex issues relating trees to the built environment. Issues such as how can you install hard surface treatments adjacent to trees, what methods can you employ to install foundations in root protection areas? And, if trees are retained, protected and fenced off from construction activity, is the scheme viable at all?

What is an Arboricultural Impact Assessment?

An arboricultural document that is interchangeably called an impact assessment or arboricultural implications report, the report essentially balances the competing needs of trees and develop-able space. Clear justification grounded in a complete knowledge of the nature and biology of trees is required to make cases for tree loss to the local planning board, or arguing for their retention if trying to remove the trees would weaken the planning case substantially. At Arbtech, our tree survey consultants author plan led reports that are concise and to the point. Tree officers do not place any store on lengthy reports that waffle through the entire British Standard verbatim. Instead, they are looking for careful and considered arguments and reasoned, scientific justification for tree loss—as well as practical, real world solutions for protecting retained trees. Plan led reports get straight to the point and communicate how the scheme sits with tree constraints in a way that words alone cannot. We find this to be highly effective and massively reduces the requirement for site meetings and enables all parties—planning officers, architects, engineers and tree consultants—to easily discuss and debate any minor adjustments the scheme may require.

Tree Protection Plan drawings for Planning Applications

The arboricultural impact assessment report justifies and supports your scheme from an arboricultural perspective, leaving the precise detail as to how the tree constraints can be overcome to the tree consultant’s method statement. This document is rarely as complex as it sounds, and typically a brief summary of the specification for protective barrier fencing or ground protection, as well as details such as arboricultural site supervision and the protocol for breach root protection areas. Again, at Arbtech we aim to deliver this as efficiently and concisely as possible, so accompany our consultant’s method statement with a tree protection plan drawing. Much like the arboricultural impact assessment, this plan led approach ensure that drawings can be issued to your design team in CAD, to be discussed, edited and worked on before being submitted in support of your planning application. Arboricultural method statements and tree protection plan drawings are particularly important to make the best case for planning applications on congested or intensively developed sites: e.g. garden basement excavations in west and central London—where space is at such a premium that both tree retention and maximizing develop-able space (and so profits) are equally important.

To arrange a quote for an Arboricultural Report or talk to a Tree Consultant contact us today on 08450 176950.