After extensive research, consultation and planning, the National Tree Safety Group (NTSG) delivers its guidance on common sense management for tree safety.
This guidance has been produced over a period of five years following the commissioning of new research into trees, their benefits, people’s attitudes to risk, extensive consultation on early drafts and considerable effort by the NTSG Drafting Group in drawing together all the various stakeholder views, concerns and priorities expressed by the full NTSG membership.
The NTSG is a broad partnership of government, the private sector and civil society working together effectively to a collective goal. Founder member The Arboricultural Association recognises how important it is to have a balanced and proportionate approach to tree safety management given the impact members’ decisions have on trees – and the implications on them as arboriculturists in an increasingly risk-averse society.
AA Technical Officer Simon Richmond said, “The Arboricultural Association has been heavily involved from the very beginning of this project, latterly as part of the Drafting Group dealing with case study scenarios. The advantages of balanced, proportionate, nationally-recognised guidance, which can be seen to reflect all stakeholders’ perspectives are obvious: inclusive agreement on a sensible approach provides the best chance of carrying public opinion, including that of the courts, to take a balanced and proportionate view in the occasional, though none-the-less tragic, occurrence of tree failure leading to injury or fatality”.
The guidance is quite simply an easy to use practical management tool. It helps all those responsible for trees – from owners and managers of large tracts of land through to those with responsibility for single trees – who wish to be reassured that they are fulfilling their duty of care to occupiers, visitors and passersby alike. It provides common-sense, clear and unambiguous practical advice in a way that is easy to read and can be interpreted to suit most, if not all, locations where trees grow – locations ranging from trees in forests, woodlands and rural areas through institutional and commercial land to parks, gardens and domestic properties in urban areas.
The guidance is available at three levels, each available as a free download with hard copy also available, as follows:
- Common sense risk management of trees (The main guidance document – free to download or £19.99 plus P&P for hard copies)
- A Landowner Summary (for estates and smallholdings – free to download or P&P only for hard copies)
- Managing Trees for Safety (For the domestic tree owner – free download or P&P only for hard copies).
Judith Webb, Chair of the NTSG said, “This suite of guidance documents brings together the best, generally accepted and balanced approach to managing risks from trees, whilst recognising the many benefits which they provide”.
“It has been an extraordinary journey bringing together arboriculturists and foresters, the public, private and charitable sectors, landowners and managers and the rural and the urban. What has been rewarding and delightful has been the extent of common understanding born from a common love and knowledge of trees”.
All the guidance documents as hard copies or PDF downloads are available from the Forestry Commission Publications website or NTSG website (from Thursday 12 January 2012) www.forestry.gov.uk/publications or www.ntsg.org.uk.
About the National Tree Safety Group
The group was formed in 2007 to agree a nationally recognised approach to tree risk management. The group is unique in that it is composed of organisations from both the public and private sectors that have all come together to agree on a common approach on how tree owners should manage their trees for safety in a way that is proportionate to the risk posed and defendable should the need ever arise.
The Guidance
This new guidance document provides advice for the tree owner that is succinct, comprehensive, but most of all, practical in its application. The broad spectrum of member organisations of the NTSG is reflected in the scope of the advice within the document, which covers trees growing in forests and estates in remote areas, through land that has occasional public access, to land and individual properties where there is frequent public access. The document also provides advice on understanding the risks from trees, appreciating and managing this risk with a balanced rationale. It details what is required legally for a tree owner to fulfil his/her duty of care. It also uses a number of case study scenarios to demonstrate how the guidance might be applied in various real-life situations.
The NTSG believes that one fundamental concept should underlie the management of risks from trees. It is that the evaluation of what is reasonable should be based upon a balance between benefit and risk. This evaluation can be undertaken only in a local context, since trees provide many different types of benefit in a range of different circumstances.
The NTSG position is underpinned by five key principles:
- trees provide a wide variety of benefits to society
- trees are living organisms that naturally lose branches or fall
- the overall risk to human safety is extremely low
- tree owners have a legal duty of care
- tree owners should take a balanced and proportionate approach to tree safety management.
Managing the risk from trees is the responsibility of the owners and managers of the land on which they grow. There are many different types of landowner and trees grow in many different environments. The guidance has been developed to support the work of all those involved in tree management, whether connected with streets; parks, public open spaces; businesses, such as, hotels or farms; private estates, woodland, commercial forestry, or private gardens. The document’s content and structure reflects the NTSG’s five key principles.
