Can Barratt cut down protected trees?

Elvisia

Thanks for your advice everyone, I have taken it all into account and have been making phone calls/sending emails/speaking to neighbours. Malkyh: your comments have been the only thing to keep me sane today! I need to keep a sense of humour or I'll cry or start throwing something at the tree choppers.

Valli

why not ring the local tv news station if one's near...

LadyMorticia

Those poor trees and birds.

Elvisia

Thanks to everyone for your helpful comments, Barratt are out there again this morning, more trees are coming down, but because it's further up the row of gardens so I can't see exactly what they're doing. However they are dragging the branches to the machine at the bottom of my garden that grates the trees into little pieces.

I got an email back from the Environmental Police Officer who said it was up to the Council, so I said they're not really doing very much so he's now contacting the Council. He did say this though:

"Any work carried out on tress, particularly between March and September, should only be done after an appropriate ecological survey is carried out – preferably by a trained Ecologist, to assess what Bird / Bat / other species are living in the trees or would be affected by the work."

Which is almost farcical as Barratt just sent in a bloke with a saw who started hacking down trees, hardly a trained ecologist. I didn't think anyone other than a trained tree surgeon could start hacking away at a tree with a TPO on it?

If I don't get anywhere with it today then I am writing to the papers, I just need the Council to let me know what they're doing, before I report it and find out it's all been agreed under the table.

It's heartbreaking this morning, we've got squirrels running all over the remaining trees, they look like they're in a state of panic at losing their homes, but who knows what goes through the mind of a squirrel! Maybe we need to dye some of them red as they're supposed to be the protected ones!

mildred1978

I feel your pain.

We have very old protected trees between us and our neighbours. They hate the trees because they obscure the sun from their conservatory. Over the years they've cut a couple down. When I informed the council, they came out and confirmed that a) the trees were protected, b) the neighbours did not have permission to cut them down and c) that they wouldn't take action against them because "fining them wont bring the trees back :mad:

Elvisia

A bit of a result - Barratt are being prosecuted and fined!! I've spoken to the councillor and it's gone as far as I can take it. The council said they know it's a bit late as some of the trees have already gone, but they can't do anything else.

Of course now I am thinking "hmmm....like this will stop them!"

So sorry for anyone else who has lost trees, it seems a very simple thing but it can be very upsetting.

sarahg1969

Elvisia wrote: »

A bit of a result - Barratt are being prosecuted and fined!!

Barratt would have expected it. However, the fines will be cheaper to them than the loss of land or planning homes around the trees would have been.

Elvisia

They've already been heavily fined over the last 1.5 years, so I am hoping against hope that they've nearly run out of their budget for fines. This is the first time they're being officially taken to court.

It's a tiny victory, and I know won't make a big difference to them, but if it means they over budget and get a bad reputation then that helps. I already got them in the local paper so they're not popular locally at the moment.

It does amaze me that these corporations are willing to spend 20k per tree they cut down.

paddyrg

What offends me is that if the first fine doesn't put them off, why the fines do not raise exponentially, £10k for the first, £20k second time, then £40k, £80k, £160k, etc - there will be a point where their wilful and vicious disregard for the law would actually become uneconomic without bankrupting the whole company.

Better still, how about the land being injuncted/planning revoked for 20 yrs. Something they would actually care about.

It is the arrogant bullying and wilful breaking of the laws purely for easy profits that upset me. If an individually wilfully sets fire to their bulldozer they get arrested and prison time, but the company can't go to prison so pays fines out of its rainy day fund. Send a director for a bit of chokey time, this could stop overnight.

Elvisia

This is exactly how I feel - I was thinking today if the fines were 100k per tree then they'd stop because you couldn't chop down ten trees and spend a million on fines. Also if people were individually prosecuted that would help, with guilty ones actually going to prison - only has to be for a week, that's enough as a criminal record makes life very difficult.

When I was trying to attract the attention of the man doing the cutting I was trying to find things to throw at him to get his attention, and I was carefully choosing how big my stones were to avoid being done for assault. There were some roof tiles there and I had to stop myself from lobbing one of those at him. He can cut down a 100 year old tree with squirrels and birds all running from it as their homes come crashing down, but I can't do anything to stop it.

Hopefully the next wave of discontent for Barratt will be when people move in, most people bought offplan and I hear there are already rumblings that the houses are far smaller than originally advertised, and I've seen enough complaints on the internet about the finish to their homes, and since some of these houses cost £800,000 (!!! you should see them - not worth that) I suspect people won't be happy with shoddy workmanship. Having seen the people building these houses I don't think having a nice finish is foremost on their minds, it has all been a rush job.