TPO

dalrymple23

TVM all - lots of fodder for thought.

Jaxjacky: honestly, noone thinks of a tree when looking to buy a stunning 16th century house, do they? Anyway, it was not then in full leaf.

Midge: There is a tree surgeon who previously dealt with it. He has to go through the rigmarole of liaising with the Council in order to get permission to lop parts of it. Cost.

25A: Must investigate honey fungus. Not heard of it. One of the cars is covered with sticky stuff and flies are glued to it. I wonder?

Baggs: This is why I say that sycamores are "weeds" - they grow relentlessly and leave their babies to procreate everywhere! Unfortunately, the tree is all mine!

I am aware of the legal ramifications of not seeking the appropriate permissions, hence me asking my original question.

I’m afraid that sycamores exude sticky stuff anyway. Same with pine trees. I thought my brand new car had been ruined by dried on sap from the overhanging pine tree but thankfully I was able to remove it either fabric conditioner. The huge trees that overhang my house are a nightmare ( and no I didn’t, as a first time house buyer in my twenties who had never owned a house surrounded by trees think that trees could cause problems); gutters have to be cleared twice a year and the huge pine next to my drive sways frighteningly when it’s windy; it’s branches have to be cut away from my roof every so often. Strangely enough, the local farmer seemed to have no problem having trees removed when he needed to put telecom stuff on his land to supply a new house he had built. Thankfully one of the trees he removed was a huge sycamore that hung over my back garden. He did make me pay towards it, though.

I only found out about honey fungus a year or so ago, when a large spread of some sort of ‘bobbly’ brown fungus appeared in the grass, close to large trees not far from our house.

After I’d eventually identified it as honey fungus, dh asked our council tree officer (we’d had satisfactory dealings with him before) about it.

He said it is largely underground, will ultimately badly damage the tree, and unfortunately there’s nothing you can do about it.

Just read interesting article from BBC - sorry can’t post a link. Where trees are causing damages to property and house owner has threatened they will sue the local Council for damages the local council has removed the TPO rather than risk it having to spend out thousands. Perhaps you could get a building report Dalrymple. Also you could speak to your insurance company to apply pressure but that could be a two edged sword.

So the suggestion is you write to the Council asking for the TPO to be removed, along with a surveyor’s report if possible, pointing out the reasons that this tree is a danger to your property and you will hold the Council responsible for any damage. Worth a try.

I would suggest that you approach the LA and ask if you can take down the sycamore and replace it with a less invasive tree a bit further away from the house.

We had a house in a conswervation area, where an elm sapling had wound itself in and out of our boundary railings splitting them and was damaging the tarmac pavement.

We cntacted the council who made a site visit and approveed the removal of the elm tree, as it had become, but asked us to plant another tree, further into the garden. We suggested a Rowan, which is a slighter tree and not so invasive and this was accepted.

I have every sympathy. Our previous house had an enormous sycamore tree by our door with a preservation order You can imagine the mess from yellow dust to wings to leaves. It was non stop
To add insult to injury people would ask to photograph it as it was such a perfect shape as nothing was growing close to it

Ask your local councillor to approach the council officer responsible for trees ("public realm" or somesuch). They are probably drowning in requests so having a councillor on your side is invaluable as the officer will have to respond. If a tree is endangering your property, the officer should be reasonable.

It's not always obvious to house buyers that a tree is going to be enormous in a few years. The trees in our neighbour's house couldn't be seen above the fence line when we moved in but within 15 years they were a right menace, breaking our guttering and bashing our solar panels. Mainly fir trees with a few self seeded silver birches amongst them. The then neighbour refused to do anything about them. Fortunately the new neighbour had the firs cut down to half their original height as his gardener couldn't cope with them. We're happy with that because we can keep our side trimmed and we have a thick green 'wall' above our fence but it doesn't reach the guttering or roof.

TVM all - lots of fodder for thought.

Jaxjacky: honestly, noone thinks of a tree when looking to buy a stunning 16th century house, do they? Anyway, it was not then in full leaf.

Midge: There is a tree surgeon who previously dealt with it. He has to go through the rigmarole of liaising with the Council in order to get permission to lop parts of it. Cost.

25A: Must investigate honey fungus. Not heard of it. One of the cars is covered with sticky stuff and flies are glued to it. I wonder?

Baggs: This is why I say that sycamores are "weeds" - they grow relentlessly and leave their babies to procreate everywhere! Unfortunately, the tree is all mine!

I am aware of the legal ramifications of not seeking the appropriate permissions, hence me asking my original question.

Sycamores are not suitable 'street' or small garden trees.

If branches are "on" your roof, dalrymple, they could quite well dislodge slates during windy weather. That should be enough for a protection order to be removed, or at least for lopping to be allowed. Lopping is never enough with sycamores though. You can reduce one to a stump and it will still regrow.

Is the tree council or privvately owned? Acouncil-owned sycamore in fromt of my mother's house was removed roots and all after she complained it was damaging her garden wall. Then the council had to pay for the wall to be rebuilt.

Didn’t realise that 25Avalon! Thanks.

midgey you need permission from the local authority, without it’s a criminal offence

Do not under any circumstances give the tree a harsh haircut as suggested by Midgey. You cannot touch it without planning permission. If you do you could be fined up to £1,000.

Ugly not ably

Very very difficult to get a TPO removed. I had an ably sycamore that someone had previously loped, with or without planning permission. The tree officer came from the Council but refused permission to remove it as he said it was beautiful!

5 years on a new recently qualified graduate tree officer was appointed to reassess all TPO’s in the area as they were over 25 years old. He discovered my tree had honey fungus which meant it was unstable and needed removing. I used his report and gave the Council 10 day’s notice as planning permission was no longer needed. So get yourself some honey fungus! I was supposed to replace the tree which I did with a decorative Rowan.

So long as the tree is still there you can give it quite a harsh haircut. Would that help?

I’m surprised you moved there, particularly after your previous experience.
You may have to pay for an arboriculturist to prepare a report stating the risk, or not, to your property.
Local authorities are very keen on preserving trees that contribute to the street scene and of course are home to wildlife, offsetting climate change and help purifying air.