Isle of Wight Council

Trees are protected under the Town and Country Planning Acts, and Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) have been made on the Isle of Wight under these Acts since 1949 when the first of these Acts was passed. In 1949, the first recorded Tree Preservation Order was made on the Island – the Borough of Ryde Tree Preservation Order 1949. Since then various authorities have been responsible for tree protection in various parts of the Island, and this duty they have discharged with variable success and enthusiasm. The Isle of Wight Council is now the Local Planning Authority for the Island and tree protection across the whole island is the responsibility of that Council.

It is often assumed that TPOs are much more powerful than they actually are. They are in fact very particular. TPOs need to be specifically made to cover a tree, group of trees, or a woodland. No trees are protected merely by virtue of their size, age, or species - if no order is made then the tree is unprotected (except in the particular case of Conservation Areas where consent is needed for any work to any tree larger than 75mm in girth; and generally if more than 5m³ of timber is felled, in which case a felling licence is required under the Forestry Act 1967). This means that where TPOs are absent trees are unprotected, and landowners could do major works to trees quite legally. Similarly, where TPOs are badly documented, the trees may also be effectively unprotected, and even if an offence were committed, it would be impossible to mount a successful prosecution.

Tree Preservation Orders are intended to protect trees or woods that have significant present or future public amenity value. They are therefore normally placed on trees which are more than ordinarily attractive and which are visible from a public place, often a road or public right of way. Protection of trees and woods across the Island is patchy; with some trees which are worth protecting being unprotected, while in other areas almost every tree is protected whatever its amenity value.

Whilst it might be a good idea in theory to provide protection for a wide range of trees or even all trees, in practice this would mean that Officer time is spent in dealing with requests to remove or carry out work to trees of little value. This time would be better focussed on trees and tree matters that are more important, or in making new Orders on trees which need protection but do not presently have it.

Since the Tree and Landscape Officer was appointed in 1997 it has been acknowledged by officers and members alike that the TPO records used by the Authority are in need of improvement. The records are old, inaccurate, and not always filed in a sensible way. Much has improved since then, and a working system has now been operating for some years. Nevertheless, improvements to the service offered, and particularly the process of creating new TPOs, has been made difficult by the amount of time required to use the records in their current state. Furthermore, many of the Orders in existence are no longer adequate for many reasons, ranging from a simple missing document; to more complex reasons such as development on the site or similar changes. This may mean that a prosecution would be hard to undertake successfully, or, in severe cases, it may mean that such an order has no force at all. It also means that providing information about protected trees in a certain area, for example in response to an enquiry by an elected member, has not been a simple matter.

Additionally, the Government has advised all Planning Authorities to review any Orders that include Areas (a particular kind of TPO) as these are likely to be abolished at some point in the near future. It is likely that this will not happen for several years yet but as many large and important areas of the Island are protected only by Area orders, which are in general terms far inferior to other Orders anyway, a review of all Area orders would be an important priority even if all the paperwork were in perfect order.

Accordingly, a review of Island TPOs has now commenced. This report marks the end of the first phase of this process.

Matthew Chatfield

Senior Countryside Officer

26 June 2002

2. Summary

Background to the Review

There are longstanding problems with the existing Tree Preservation Order records. Many are in poor condition, and do not provide the protection to trees for which they were intended. A review of these has been undertaken and this report is the first major output of the review.

Results

All paper records of Tree Preservation Orders were processed and analysed. Of these, only 22.3% proved to be adequate. The trees protected by the TPOs were distributed across the Island in an unexpectedly even manner.

The Orders were given a priority rating for review based on the inadequacy of the order, and the perceived importance of the protected trees. Ancient woodlands were given top priority, and six percent of Orders requiring review fell into this category. Another nine percent were high priority for other reasons.

Analysis

The review clearly identifies the considerable extent of the deficiency in the paper Orders. As a value added product of this review process, for the first time all Orders have been given unique numbers, duplicates have been removed and filing errors have been made good. We now know that there are some 1148 records of Orders.

The review also allows an estimate, based on accurate figures, of the work required to review the Orders. The task will take eleven years for one person to complete, over and above the existing routine work undertaken. If adequate Orders are excluded, this figure only goes down to 10 years 7 months. Even so, this does not take into account all the areas where no TPOs presently exist.

Conclusions and Recommendations

It is clear that the majority of trees protected by existing Orders may not actually be protected at all. This is a serious problem, the extent of which is greater than was anticipated.

It will not be possible to accommodate this large new project within the existing staff structure of the Trees Section. The TPO review is a new task for which new resources are required.

The areas where this review could be commenced are identified using criteria that prioritise areas where trees are particularly important in the local landscape, and where they might be under particular threat.

Proposed Restructuring

There is a difficulty in obtaining competent consultants to undertake TPO review work and it is likely that, to undertake a job of this scale, directly employed staff would be a more effective use of resources. A restructuring of the Trees Section is proposed which will make it possible to undertake the TPO review. There is already evidence that the existing Trees & Landscape Section is not sufficiently staffed to undertake the routine work of managing protected trees – with only 24% of the average number of staff in Hampshire local authorities.

The proposed structure not only provides a way to undertake the TPO review but also addresses existing staffing problems in the Section. New proposals are made to include a new, wider consultation process, and to develop and considerably improve the existing Tree Warden scheme to use the support available from local people.

Financial Costs

This review will require revenue funding on a permanent basis. The proposals, as identified, would cost an extra £82,000 per annum. This figure takes into account the existing Trees Section budget, and savings identified elsewhere in the Countryside Section.

The Case for New Resources

New resources will be necessary to effectively implement the TPO Review. It must be emphasised that the TPO review cannot be undertaken using existing staff resources, which are barely sufficient to provide the basic routine tree protection service. The identified improvements to services will not be achieved without some restructuring and resources. Some limited aspects of these proposals could be implemented without necessarily undertaking the TPO review, although not without some revenue cost.

Until the Review is undertaken, tree protection will not be complete or consistent. In addition, the longer no action is taken, the more resources will be required to rectify the situation.

The existing tree protection service is only providing the basic level of service. There are expectations that the service provided will improve, in particular with regards to the level of consultation which is presently offered, and with the use of tree wardens.

Whilst it would be possible to make various smaller-scale improvements to the service, there is no doubt that these would be considerably more effective if the fundamental review required is simultaneously undertaken. Full implementation of the TPO review would not only improve the TPO records, but also bring a wider improvement to the entire Trees Service, which would be widely welcomed by users of the service including members of the public, elected Members and internal clients such as Development Control, Highways, and the AONB Unit.

End of Summary

3. The TPO Review Process

Background to the Review

Problems with the system were first outlined in a paper for information to the Countryside Panel on 15 December 1998. A further report was presented to Planning and Countryside (Policy) Committee held at Westridge on 11 January 2000. At this meeting it was resolved that a report be prepared regarding Area Orders and the financial implications of examining the trees presently protected therein, and upon possible ways of responding to recent and forthcoming changes and regulations governing Tree Preservation Orders. This reporting process was begun and it soon became apparent that a very much larger task was necessary than was proposed. Officers were able to identify a fund of £35,000 by autumn 2000, which allowed the TPO Review to start at the beginning of 2001. This funding was intended to produce the Order Status Report (this document) and to establish the computer system to record and catalogue the Orders and allow easy access to future Orders. Although some pilot work to review Orders on the ground has been undertaken with these funds, the £35,000 was not intended to be sufficient to begin implementation of the main body of the review, proposals for which are discussed later in this document.

The process had a slow start, as considerable research was required to establish the best computer resources to use, and to obtain and install the required programmes. Parallel and continuing problems with the wider Acolaid system have meant delays to this part of the Review. However, since autumn 2001, an officer has been working full-time on the TPO review process compiling a database of all Orders, re-filing, and reviewing the paper records. The computer delays have not affected the production of the Order Status Report, which was produced using an independent database not linked to Acolaid. An update on the process was reported to the Planning Policy Task Group held on 3 December 2001.

This review of the paperwork comprises the, now completed, first phase of the TPO Review, and this report is one product of that first phase.

Outcomes from First Phase

Order Status Report summarises condition of existing Orders and analyses the work required to review them, and suggests some priorities.
All Orders are now identifiable by their own unique reference number.
A number of records that were duplicates, filed in error or effectively not Orders at all have been removed from the system.
Records held by Legal Services, Local Land Charges and Countryside Section are now synchronised.

Problems Encountered

Before the review process began, it was estimated that between 800-1000 Orders were in existence. The filing system did not allow the Orders to be easily counted, as they were subdivided and filed in several places. However, it turned out that over 1200 records needed to be processed. This extra workload delayed the review process to some extent.

A second unanticipated discovery was that a large number of the Orders used as working copies in the Countryside records were not the same as the original documents stored by Legal Services and those kept by Local Land Charges. Although in most cases the differences were inconsequential, this did require that a large subgroup of Orders were checked, not only against the working records, but also the originals - a significant extra task. This had the beneficial effect of updating and synchronising the files of Countryside, Legal Services and Local Land Charges.

Next Steps

The second phase is the input of data for existing Orders - and new Orders as they are created - into the new Acolaid TP computer system. This process has already begun, although the system is not yet fully operational. However, this was anticipated and neither the Order Status Report nor the third phase site review are dependent upon the Acolaid system to proceed.

The third part of the review process is the actual on-site review of the protected trees themselves, and the creation of new Orders that this would require. Pilot projects have been undertaken since 2000 to plan how this can be done. This process is currently being undertaken on parts of the Undercliff.

Needless to say this will be by far the largest part of the review, and it is anticipated that to complete the review across the entire Island will take many years. More detail of this and options for this third phase are discussed later in this report.

Notes for the Graphs:

For more information about inadequate Orders and how these are identified, see Appendix 1, page 29.

These records refer to Orders by number. However it should be noted that not all Orders are the same. An Area Order covering many hundreds of trees is, for these purposes, treated the same as an Individual Order covering just one tree. However there are few such large Orders (see Appendix 2: List of Larger Area Orders) and this process provides a useful guide, without necessarily making this distinction.

A number of Orders were eliminated from the records, because they were Orders made before 1975, which referred only to elms. These trees no longer exist because of Dutch Elm Disease. These orders are shown as ‘None’ in Graph 1. They will not require revision.

These figures exclude orders made since 2001, of which there are some 45 located throughout the Island, almost all of which are adequate.

5. Analysis

Graph 1: Tree Preservation Orders by Electoral Division

This chart shows the total number of Orders in each Electoral Division. In addition, it shows the number of inadequate Orders in each Division. The graph shows that no single ward has all its TPOs assessed as adequate. In fact, the average ward has eighteen inadequate orders and only five adequate ones. Four wards have no adequate orders at all.

These figures do not directly indicate the risk to trees so it does not follow that areas with the most inadequate orders are the most at risk. Other factors (not shown on this graph) are equally important. For example, in many wards there are Conservation Areas that provide a level of protection to trees without the additional need for Orders to be made. Also in rural areas development pressure is relatively low, compared to any urban ward.

What is striking about these data is the surprisingly even distribution of inadequate Orders. Most wards follow the pattern of about 20% adequate - with a few exceptions. The most prominent ward is Wootton, which leads the field with 58% of its Orders being adequate. This is largely due to a cluster of good quality Orders that have been made in the New Road area - northwest of the bridge at Wootton. By contrast is the ward with the largest number of Orders overall, Brighstone and Calbourne, with only 3% of its Orders being adequate.

One of the reasons for breaking down the Orders by ward is to identify areas where the review work should be concentrated. The results do not show any clear differences, contrary to expectations. The data, as shown, seem to suggest that although some wards are worse than others, there is an approximately normal distribution both of numbers of Orders and numbers of inadequate Orders.

However, not revealed by this exercise is the extent of trees which have never been the subject of a TPO, but which are worthy of one. Some of these might be located through the review process but, more likely, these trees could be identified by local liaison and the development of the network of tree wardens. At present, there are no resources available to undertake such a further survey, and it would not be appropriate to encourage members of the public to identify these trees at this time. Unless changes are made to the Trees Section it is unlikely that the work generated by such a process could be processed. Indeed, the process of identifying trees that are unprotected might have the effect of alerting unscrupulous landowners who may then remove the trees.

At present, some 15 to 25 new Orders are made every year for a variety of reasons. These do include requests from the public and others, but the process is not systematic or prioritised. There is not therefore any system to be certain that all trees worthy of protection will be protected.

Graph 2: Tree Preservation Orders: Status

This pie chart simply expresses the total numbers of adequate and inadequate Orders. It reflects the condition of the paper records – not actually the risk to trees (which is better shown by the priority ratings shown in Graph 3).

There are a total 1148 records of Orders in existence, of which 256 are adequate and 892 are inadequate. There are 872 Orders in total, including 40 further Orders made since 2001 that did not need reviewing. Also about 20 records of Orders turned out to be invalid and can be discounted. Although this total number is well within the 800-1000 range that was anticipated; the much larger number of records, generated by duplication and splitting up of large Orders, did mean considerably more time was required to process the Orders than was anticipated.

This means, in effect, that only one Order in five is adequate.

Graph 3: TPO Revision Priorities

Following the initial review, the Orders have all been examined against 19 criteria (see Appendix 1, page 29). They have also given a revision priority from five possible allocations (shown below) which reflect a proposed order for revision should these proposals be implemented.

Table 1: Revision Priority Allocations

Priority Number	Priority
0	No revision needed (Order no longer in force)
1	Inadequate: very high priority
2	Inadequate: high priority
3	Inadequate: medium priority
4	Inadequate: low priority
5	Adequate, to be reviewed within 30 years

Those in priority 0 (e.g. Order no longer in force) are Orders that are not valid because they were made prior to 1975 and referred to elm trees that no longer exist.

All Orders that are presently entirely satisfactory have been made revision priority 5 or 4 (depending on their age) in accordance with DTLR guidelines that state that all TPOs should be periodically reviewed.

Note that this does not correspond precisely to the classification of adequate/inadequate, which is shown in Graph 2. Adequacy or otherwise is determined mostly by the condition of the paper records. Adequacy does not take into account known risks to trees. This priority order is a much more detailed assessment of the true need for review.

Therefore, although all of the Orders shown as Priority 5 are defined as adequate, there are also Orders presently adequate which are nevertheless shown as Priority 4 because of the age of the Order, which means that they are likely to be in need of review within the next twenty years. A rolling 30-year programme of review is assumed for the long-term review of all Orders.

Work Required to Review Orders

To predict the amount of work required to review a particular Order is not straightforward. Orders can vary from huge Area Orders covering many dozens of properties and many thousands of trees, to the simplest Individual Order on one solitary tree.

However, based on the experience of the pilot projects which have been undertaken, it is possible to make predictions based upon an ‘average’ Order. Nevertheless it must be emphasised that these are subject to wide variations:

Table 2: Sample time required to revise one typical Order

Task	Worker (present arrangement)	Time (days)
Field visit and report	Consultant Arboriculturalist/ Tree and Landscape Officer	0.2
Making new Order or Revision of existing Order	Administration Officer	0.5
Responding to representations, consultation with Members, committee paper if required	Tree and Landscape Officer/ Senior Countryside Officer	1.5
Confirming /serving final Order, filing	Administration Officer	0.3
TOTAL		2.5 days

Using this rough figure, it is possible to extrapolate the time to required tackle the outstanding Orders requiring review. For example by considering the different revision priorities as below:

Table 3: Sample time costs of reviewing all outstanding Orders

Revision Priority		Number of Orders x Days		Time to Revise (days)	Time to Revise (work years)
1	Very High	68	x 2.5 days	170	0.68
2	High	98	x 2.5 days	245	0.98
3	Medium	679	x 2.5 days	1697.5	6.79
4	Low	215	x 2.5 days	537.5	2.15
5	Adequate	40	x 2.5 days	100	0.4
TOTALS		1100	days	2750 days