Inspections and maintenance
All trees are potentially hazardous, however the inspection programme can reasonably only address the conditions most likely to lead to injury or damage to people or property. These are the physical or physiological conditions that may lead to a break up or collapse of a tree. It should, however, be noted that trees generally present a low risk.
Inspections are carried out by council officers who have undertaken suitable training and have the experience necessary to identify potential defects and suggest appropriate remedial action. Other council staff who are working on site near trees are encouraged to report any issues they observe to the tree officer for inspection
Defects will fall into 4 categories:
| Category 1 | Urgent within 1 working day | Defined as an imminent risk to public safety; urgent action required. Emergency 24hr defects will be passed to the contractor immediately and the area made safe |
|---|---|---|
| Category 2 | High risk to be dealt with within 3 months | Defined as a significant risk to public safety; although not imminent priority action is required |
| Category 3 | Medium 3 months to 1 year | Defined as acceptable risk to public safety but requires attention. Action response times will be in line with best practice and will depend upon a number of factors including volume of work, contractor availability and seasonal nature of the work. |
| Category 4 | Low within 2 years | Defined as acceptable risk to public safety. No immediate action required although defect deemed likely to present a more significant hazard in the future. |
Inspection procedure
3 types of inspections will be carried out:
- formal - Visual Tree Assessment (VTA) from the ground by a qualified inspector (tree officer)
- informal - walk/drive-by by either a qualified inspector or industry related employee (e.g. rangers) who work in and around council owned trees as part of their normal work duties
- detailed - more invasive specialist decay detection techniques used, written reports carried out by external professional contractor.
The Visual Tree Assessment process examines the external health and structural condition of the tree(s). As a result only visible defects are likely to be identified. Other techniques which assess the structural integrity of trees will not usually be used.
Trees will be inspected in line with the inspections schedule. Reactive requests will be assessed according to the hazard and zone category and remedied accordingly.
Following severe weather, tree officers and streetscene staff will be asked to carry out a brief visual inspection of the areas they visit in the course of their work and report any urgent issues.
Inspection frequency for a particular area may be reviewed in accordance with any change in circumstances, such as concerns arising from reported incidents, land use change as a result of development or staff feedback.
Record of inspection and maintenance
Each stand-alone tree or group of trees will be given an identifying number which will form part of the councils database. Not every tree or group within the borough will be inspected, those deemed to be in an area with very little or no usage may not be inspected.
Records will be kept of the inspection and any remedial works carried out. Records will be retained for twenty years.