Agenda item

The purpose of this report is to summarise the content and implications of the Final Tree Strategy for the District, and recommend that the Final version of the Strategy is adopted by Three Rivers District Council (Appendix B – Final Tree Strategy).

The purpose of this report was to summarise the content and implications of the Final Tree Strategy for the District, and recommend that the final version of the Strategy is adopted by Three Rivers District Council (Appendix B – Final Tree Strategy).

The Principal Landscape Officer reported that this was a new document for the Council which sets out the Authorities approach to a range tree issues in the District.  A period of public consultation was held during August and September this year and a brief summary of the areas of feedback received was included in Appendix A to the report and included officer responses to the feedback.  Some minor grammatical and technical amendments had been made to the strategy for approval tonight.  The Strategy would be reviewed and updated again in 5 years’ time. 

Members made the following comments:

•               There had been 45 responses to the consultation and asked if any amendments to the strategy were made in the light of those responses other than the grammatical and technical changes.

•               Paragraph 95 of the strategy refers to the watering of mature trees as being critical to their establishment so wondered why hydration bags had not been included.

•               Would it be useful to reference the detailed specification in the strategy which could assist residents?

•               At point 108 it stated that a member of the public can request a TPO but had to advise the nature of any threat.  Shouldn’t the value of the tree be sufficient rather than cite a specific threat?  The wording in the policy made it appear that the member of the public had to state the nature of any threat – could that be amended so that there is no requirement to provide that.

•               Thanked officers for the work they had done and the people who responded to the consultation.  The District had a lot of woodland which everyone appreciated and wanted to see more trees planted.

•               In the Aquadrome the trees were inspected but there were still dangerous trees that had been left or missed.  Was there scope in this strategy for someone to oversee the trees to check the work?

•               All of our policies assume that what is included in the policy is done correctly and if it was not done correctly that would be a separate issue.  This is strategy rather than a list of jobs.

•               Paragraph 115 of the strategy highlighted a vague commitment that “TRDC would carry out periodic reviews of TPOs…..” could the review time period be defined and the endeavour be more of a tighter commitment and timeframe.

•               Paragraph 127 was that a legislative decision and not the Council making that decision.

•               In terms of Paragraph 115 the action was to undertake a desk top review of existing TPOs and identify those that require updating so to some extent this is covered by the action being proposed.

•               Wish to record the work TRDC do on trees and referred to Paragraph 121 where a weekly tree bulletin is provided to Members and interested parties. Very few authorities provided this.

•               Welcomed the weekly tree bulletin and planning bulletin but would like to see a weekly licensing bulletin as well.

Councillor Chris Lloyd moved, duly seconded, that the Tree Strategy be adopted subject to any comments by the LEC Committee in January.

The Principal Landscape officer responded as follows:

•             There had been no changes made to the policy due to the responses received to the consultation.

•             There is a detailed specification for standard trees which includes technical information (including hydration bags) and chose not to include that level of detail in the strategy but a copy of the technical information can be sent to Members to view.  Reference could be included in the strategy to that information.

•             You do not need to cite a specific threat to a tree to request a TPO but the Council have to consider the legislation and whether it is expedient to serve a TPO.  If officers understand that there is a clear and specific threat to a tree that might change our reasoning on whether it might be expedient to serve a TPO at that time.  The wording of the policy could be amended to reflect that you do not need to identify a specific threat to the tree.

•             The finer details on the policy can be discussed at the LEC meeting in January.

•             On Paragraph 127 – if it was a Conservation Area notification the Council were not able to condition it to have a replacement tree without putting a TPO on it. 

On being put to the Committee the motion was declared CARRIED by the Chair the voting being unanimous.

RESOLVED:

Approved the Final Tree Strategy subject to any comments made by the Leisure, Environment & Community Committee on 12 January 2022 and to be then formally adopted by Three Rivers District Council