Agenda item

To consider a report by the Countryside and Heritage Services Manager (copy enclosed) which seeks the Committee’s views on a new approach and procedure for managing activities relating to trees across the county

10.05am – 10.35am  

The Lead Member for Housing, Regulation and Environment and the Head of Highways and Environmental Services introduced the Countryside and Heritage Manager’s report (previously circulated) and informed members that their views were sought on a draft procedure for managing all activities relating to trees across the county.  They explained that the decision to draw up a procedure had stemmed from a recent service challenge exercise which had highlighted the need for a written procedure and guidance to assist officers across the authority to answer tree management queries.  As a number of Council services had trees located in and around their premises, tree management was an authority-wide responsibility.  An easily accessible and user friendly procedure was therefore needed to help officers deal with enquiries relating to their management.  The existence of such a procedure would also assist the Council to fulfil its legal obligations as a landowner, its regulatory duties under Planning Acts, and to support the delivery of a number of elements within the Environment Priority of the new Corporate Plan, whilst at the same time supporting its biodiversity ambitions.  The draft procedure’s presentation to the Committee for members’ comments formed part of the consultation process on its contents.  Once approved it would be published on the Council’s website and intranet, and a reader friendly Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) document would be produced for ease of reference purposes.

Prior to inviting questions from Committee members the Chair welcomed Councillor Hugh Irving to the meeting and invited him to address the Committee, as Councillor Irving had formally requested that Scrutiny examine the need for a county-wide policy or procedure to deal with trees.  In his address Councillor Irving welcomed the procedure, citing examples of problems caused by overgrown trees etc. from his experience as a councillor.  He endorsed the suggestion of having an easy-read summary version of the procedure which would be useful to officers, councillors and residents alike.

Responding to members’ questions the Corporate Director: Economy and Community Ambition, Head of Highways and Environmental Services and the Countryside and Heritage Services Manager –

·         confirmed that the fundamental principle for having a written procedure for dealing with trees was to protect trees across the county wherever possible, by ensuring that felling a tree would be a last resort i.e. if it was causing a hazard or posing a danger.  This aspect was covered in Section 15 of the draft procedure

·         advised that trees deemed to be ‘obstructing natural light’ to a property would not be classed as a hazard and therefore would not be felled or pruned on that basis

·         explained the process for applying a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) and advised that TPOs were not time limited.  If it was deemed necessary to fell a tree protected by a TPO an application would have to be made for a revocation, or a variation, of the order.  If the Council permitted the revocation/variation it could do so on the grounds that a replacement tree was planted and that the replacement tree also be subject to a TPO.  The majority of trees subject to TPOs were located on private land, not on Council owned land

·         confirmed that the Council’s new Corporate Plan contained a strategy for addressing the lack of trees in certain areas of the county

·         advised that the Planning and Public Protection Department employed a TPO officer who dealt with TPO related enquiries, whilst both the Highways and Property Services undertook risk assessments in relation to trees;

·         advised that there was a ‘self-service’ area on the Council’s Planning Service portal which residents, councillors and staff could use to check if a specific tree was the subject of a TPO.  However, the Council did not have sufficient resources to regularly monitor compliance with TPOs, but if a member of the public contacted the Council expressing concerns that a TPO tree was in danger of being felled without the Council’s permission, or without gaining a variation order, the Planning and Public Protection Service could serve an enforcement notice to safeguard it

·         confirmed that the Council did not spray trees with pesticides. Sap etc. caused due to greenfly infestation was deemed to be an acceptable type of nuisance

·         advised that a business plan was being drawn up with respect of the proposal in the Corporate Plan to plant 18,000 trees, in Denbigh and Rhyl, for submission to the Programme Board in February on how this ambition could be realised.  Officers were confident that with monies available from other sources such as Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and the Welsh Government’s Plant! Initiative (where a native tree is planted in Wales for every child born or adopted) this element of the priority could be delivered with minimal financial input from the Council.  The Council’s input would be the provision of staff to plant the trees

·         informed members that as part of the work required to deliver the Environment priority contained in the Corporate Plan consideration could be given to employing a ‘Tree Officer’, an expert in the field, who would help manage and co-ordinate tree related work across the authority.  The financial viability of the creation of this post was currently being assessed.  The Council did have a ‘Tree Officer’ some years ago, but when the post holder retired it was decided, as part of the efficiency savings process that the post should be deleted

·         confirmed that the Council had powers under the Highways Act (Dangerous Trees, 1980) to make the owners of trees causing an obstruction on the highway to remove them.  If they did not comply with the Council’s request the Authority would undertake the removal and charge the landowner appropriately

·         advised that they could not see any benefit for the local authority from handing over responsibilities for tree management to town or community councils

·         confirmed that each Council Service was responsible for trees situated on or near land or premises which they managed e.g. housing, social services, education, leisure services etc.  Any remedial work carried out by Highways and Environmental Services to ensure residents and service users’ safety in and around sites managed by other services would be recharged to that Service’s budget.  The issue of recharging services for work undertaken was a wider debate that required to take place across the Council – the merits of having a ‘budget’ to accommodate undertaking work to keep residents and the public safe in and around Council owned premises on an as and when basis was worth exploring

·         advised that for schools responsibility for the safety and maintenance of trees on their grounds may well be delegated to each individual school in line with their delegated budget

·         emphasised the need for councillors or the general public who had concerns about tree safety to report it to the Council’s Customer Services Centre so that each query was recorded on the CRM system and allocated to the Service to follow-up.  This would ensure that an audit trail existed for each enquiry

·         advised that if there were disputes between neighbours due to hedge heights etc., these would be referred to the Planning and Public Protection Service.  However, Section 3 of the draft procedure did make reference to the High Hedges Act, Part 8 of the Anti-Social Behaviour Act, 2003 and its provisions in relation to evergreen hedge growth’s impact on natural light.  This section also referred people to rights under ‘Common Law’ to abate nuisances caused by encroaching trees

·         confirmed that the draft procedure was currently being consulted upon internally within the Council.  Consultation had not at present been extended externally to the public, neighbouring authorities or to the North Wales Trunk Road Agency (NWTRA).  However, it was acknowledged that NWTRA did effectively manage trees along its network.  Once the Council was happy with the procedure officers would willingly share it with NWTRA

·         agreed to enquire on the number of claims made against the Council in recent years in relation to damage caused by Council owned trees and the amounts paid out to settle such claims

·         officers agreed to circulate to members a link to the relevant area on the Planning portal website which referred to various legislation and guidance on TPOs, high hedges and trees, and which contained maps denoting trees which were already subject to TPOs.

The Committee requested that the final procedure document contain explicit reference to ownership of non-highway trees located on or in the vicinity of school grounds, leisure facilities, social care facilities or other Council run premises and the need for the ‘responsible site manager’ to ensure arrangements were made for regular health and safety risk assessments to be undertaken on trees at those sites.  Members expressed concerns on whether Authority premises managers were suitability trained or qualified to undertake risk assessments on trees for public liability purposes and whether the Council or individual managers could be at risk of being open to litigation action by not having the safety of trees on these premises assessed by suitably qualified persons.

At the conclusion of the discussion the Committee –

RESOLVED that subject to the above observations and the inclusion of an explicit reference in the document that ‘the responsible site manager’ at each Council run premises be responsible for ensuring that arrangements were made to undertake regular health and safety risk assessments on all non-highway trees on or around the site for the purpose of safeguarding site users and the general public, to support the approach outlined in the ‘Dealing with Trees’ procedure document.