Tree Preservation Order

Rachel19

Hi,

Does anyone know if it is possible to find out when exactly a tree preservation order was made on a tree?

I have the Case number, TPO number and the Tree reference which i could find on my local council website.

I have spoken with my local TPO officer at my council who have said it is a really old TPO from an old existing tree and the TPO is on the 'land'.

I'm not sure I believe what they are saying as a neighbour who has lived in the property for 20 years said the tree was planted by the previous owners of my house and before this there has never been a tree there.

There is an ongoing issue with who the land actually belongs to that the tree is situated on, that is a whole other issue in itself, but it doesn't belong to the house we own.

Im interested to see if you can independintly find out how long the TPO has existed for and if this is possible?

sevenhills

Rachel19 wrote: »

I have spoken with my local TPO officer at my council who have said it is a really old TPO from an old existing tree and the TPO is on the 'land'.

Are you assuming that there is a TPO because its a very old tree?

Rachel19

Hi

no I!!!8217;m not assuming there is a tpo on it because it actually shows up on my local council website the correct species of tree in the. I can view a map of all the trees in my area which have tpos on

davidmcn

The council should be able to tell you the date the order was made.

Rachel19

Hi yeah he just said it dates back a long time ago.

It was more if I could independently access this information rather than through the council

davidmcn

Why don't you just ask the council what date it was made?

Independent sources - well, it was probably advertised at the time it was made. So you could trawl through the public notices of whichever newspaper(s) it might have been advertised in, but goodness knows how long that'll take you, unless it's one with a useful index.

glasgowdan

Email them an FOI request

Red-Squirrel_2

Why are you concerned about a TPO for a tree on somebody else!!!8217;s land?

Norman_Castle

Rachel19 wrote: »

I have spoken with my local TPO officer at my council who have said it is a really old TPO from an old existing tree and the TPO is on the 'land'.

Did you ask if the tree in question is covered by the tpo?

diamond_dave

I live in Cornwall and the whole area is subject to a TPO -ie all the trees on my property are subject to the order. I cannot prune or cut any tree on my property even if it overhangs the main road without getting specific permission from the council.

EachPenny

Rachel19 wrote: »

Hi yeah he just said it dates back a long time ago.

It was more if I could independently access this information rather than through the council

The Council (and probably only the Council) should be able to tell you the precise date the TPO was made and have a copy available for you to inspect.

What I suspect is happening is the person you've spoken to is accessing a GIS system to respond to your enquiry, rather than consulting the original records. Local Authorities have used many data management systems over the years and although full details might have been captured when the data was originally digitised sometimes bits of information get 'lost'. Some records also span the Year2000 'bug' which wasn't always handled as well as it should have been.

I've worked with datasets where 'historic' records were digitised with a nominal date because the system wasn't able to capture the actual date - I believe Excel still doesn't recognise anything before 1900! One system couldn't cope with anything prior to 01/01/1980, so all earlier records were digitised as 01/01/1980 with the actual date recorded in a 'notes' field. One migration of the data resulted in all the 'notes' vanishing from the system.

So if something like that has happened in the past with your council's trees register then the person you've been speaking to might just know that the TPO date was before a certain date (i.e. is 'old') but cannot give a more accurate date without having to do some digging in the archives.

I would think it more likely it is just a lack of willingness to do the work to find out the date, rather than a deliberate attempt to hide information from you.

An FoI request should sort it out if a polite request doesn't.