Thread: Tree removal advice? not L.R.

Originally Posted by Tank

A couple in Nowra threatened their local council for any damages caused by trees they wanted to remove, Council still said no, one of the trees fell on the house killing the man, his wife took Council to the Supreme court and lost and had to pay Councils costs, bankrupted her, Regards frank.

That would be this case:

Shoalhaven City Council ats Timbs [2004] NSWCA 81

Mr Timbs was killed when a tree growing on his property fell onto the roof of his residence causing the roof to collapse onto him. His widow sued the Council in negligence for property damage and for damages for the death of her husband. It was claimed that, at the property owner's request, Council officers attended the property on two occasions to inspect the trees. The property owners were advised by those officers that the trees on the property (including the one that fell) were safe and sound and could not be removed as they were the subject of a Tree Preservation Order (TPO).

The Court of Appeal unanimously held that Council was not bound to express any opinion about whether the tree was dangerous. However, the Court held once the Council did embark upon the exercise of expressing an opinion, it was required to provide the opinion with care.

The Court found the Council held a significant and special measure of control over the safety of the Timbs in circumstances where they had brought to the Council's attention their fears, and the Council then chose to advise about whether the trees in question were dangerous. When the council officer took it upon himself to express a positive view as to the safety of the tree, he was representing a capacity to do so based upon his experience and expertise. In those circumstances, the requisite standard of care was higher than that of a layperson. The Court decided that the inference was open, and should be drawn, that a reasonably informed diagnosis would have revealed that the decayed structural roots and the trees were dangerous.

Some more:

Court imposes hefty fine for illegal tree removal

Thursday, 5 April 2007

A Lower Beechmont man has been fined $28,000 in the Southport Magistrates Court and ordered to pay costs of $2200 for illegally removing trees on his property.

Mr Branko Martin Sola was prosecuted for removing a total of 17 trees from his property at 218 Freemans Road, Lower Beechmont.

In June last year Council staff, who were responding to a resident’s complaint, discovered Mr Sola had illegally removed seven trees from his 6592 square metre property.

The second breach, the illegal removal of 10 trees, was detected by a Council staff member in September last year.

Mr Sola has been given two years to pay the fines.

No conviction was recorded.

A second on Google would have shown you this.
Timbs won.-$754K
http://www.shoalhaven.nsw.gov.au/cou...rt20050307.pdf

And this has changed the whole ball game. councils are much more reluctant to refuse applications, particularly close to houses.
Regards Philip A

Originally Posted by rovercare

25mm auger+syringe+round up=

As stated, its to late to ask for permission, if the tree was already cut down

Round up is too slow and in a lot of really sappy trees doesnt work all that well, makes them sick but doesnt really knock them.

You need Garlon

My solution to these irritating problems is bolted to the front of my Landrover.

Hook the winch cable as high as possible, about 2/3rds up the tree is about the best and if you can snatch it off another tree and make sure your well out of the way.

Once on the ground, make a couple of cuts with the saw where the winch cable was so they cant say you winched it down and your home free.

All you tell them was that it was a freak wind that brought it down and your considering suing them for not allowing you to cut it down and they MOST LIKELY wont do anymore about it as they really dont like that sort of thing as they have trouble prooving anything.

They probably wont show up on a Sunday morning at about 6am so that would be the best time to do it and if any hippy neibours get into you about it and call them you just say they are on the weed a bit too much and it fell over all by itself, "Tree's do that", take photo's of the roots connected to the stump leaving out any proof that you could have winched it.

I used to live in the Yarra Ranges and severable friends had troublesome trees the Tirfor made short work of.

By the way, a hand winch off another tree is the most snieky way if you have really bad neibours as they know nothing until the chainsaw starts up to cut it up once it's on the ground.

Good luck and have fun.

Originally Posted by PhilipA

A second on Google would have shown you this.
Timbs won.-$754K
http://www.shoalhaven.nsw.gov.au/cou...rt20050307.pdf

And this has changed the whole ball game. councils are much more reluctant to refuse applications, particularly close to houses.
Regards Philip A

Not down here it hasnt changed anything, they are still stupid about it.

On the golf course we have done a complete ordit (sp?) of every tree on the property.

In this we discovered (as far as the council rules goes for public lands) that we have more than 1000 too many trees for the area privided.

Yet when we removed 3 50yo pine tree's that were half dead the council wanted to try and stop us........the boss laughed at them and we continued.

They went through all the rigmarole and redtape to find that we were doing what was actually the legal thing to do and get rid of dangerous trees from a public area.

They still complain.

Originally Posted by PhilipA

A second on Google would have shown you this.
Timbs won.-$754K
http://www.shoalhaven.nsw.gov.au/cou...rt20050307.pdf

And this has changed the whole ball game. councils are much more reluctant to refuse applications, particularly close to houses.
Regards Philip A

Thanks. However if you read that, it says the Judges statements had "not established a principal" concerning tree inspections.

Originally Posted by mcrover

Round up is too slow and in a lot of really sappy trees doesnt work all that well, makes them sick but doesnt really knock them.

You need Garlon

My solution to these irritating problems is bolted to the front of my Landrover.

Hook the winch cable as high as possible, about 2/3rds up the tree is about the best and if you can snatch it off another tree and make sure your well out of the way.

Once on the ground, make a couple of cuts with the saw where the winch cable was so they cant say you winched it down and your home free.

All you tell them was that it was a freak wind that brought it down and your considering suing them for not allowing you to cut it down and they MOST LIKELY wont do anymore about it as they really dont like that sort of thing as they have trouble prooving anything.

They probably wont show up on a Sunday morning at about 6am so that would be the best time to do it and if any hippy neibours get into you about it and call them you just say they are on the weed a bit too much and it fell over all by itself, "Tree's do that", take photo's of the roots connected to the stump leaving out any proof that you could have winched it.

I used to live in the Yarra Ranges and severable friends had troublesome trees the Tirfor made short work of.

By the way, a hand winch off another tree is the most snieky way if you have really bad neibours as they know nothing until the chainsaw starts up to cut it up once it's on the ground.

Good luck and have fun.

Great suggestions, but every man and his dog has digital cameras these days, or a phone with a camera.

Looks like you'd best do it under cover of darkness then

So the trees in question are the radiata pine which I am allowed to remove because council says no matter where they are you can take them out. But the guy said is he had a choice he would not let me, the radiata is the tallest tree in the pic. Then the other tree is the one right next to it and slightly shorter on the left hand side if looking at the photo.

The radiata is probaly over 30 meters so the other tree ain't short either. The thing is it's a narrow block and so that golden cypress (which I'll get the proper name for) just spans the whole front of the block.