News

Proposed safety guidelines could lead to serious loss of trees, warns Landscape Institute President

6th August 2008

Proposed new guidelines could lead to people chopping down or not planting new trees, the Landscape Institute warned.

President Neil Williamson called on the British Standards Institution (BSI) to change their plans for guidance on tree safety and criticised proposals for failing to properly balance the risks and benefits of trees and failing to differentiate between private householders and larger landowners or public bodies.

Williamson said the proposals placed a new level of technical responsibility on those responsible for trees over and above the normal requirements in existing legislation.

“There is a real danger that many individual and corporate land owners and managers will seek to avoid these burdens simply by removing existing trees or not planting new ones under these plans,” he said. “There is already anecdotal evidence of this happening.”

“We suggest the guidance be aimed at the professional and expert audience, which is better equipped and experienced to address the relevant issues. As proposed, the costs and liabilities associated with trees could push ordinary people into taking unnecessary action.”

Williamson said the Landscape Institute was wholeheartedly committed to encouraging and enabling the appropriate planting and good management of trees and promoting the many environmental, economic and social benefits that trees provide. However, the draft Standard was a potential obstacle to these objectives.

Under the proposals, all trees would have to be inspected by owners every 12 months, followed by a ‘trained person’ inspection every three years and an ‘expert’ inspection every five years.