Trees on edge of national road...whose responsibility?

amacca

Hi,

There are a couple of trees in a ditch on some land I bought recently. They are tall and right beside the road with some ivy covering (they are also quite near an inhabited cottage)

Ive been thinking about getting them felled for safety reasons and contacted a tree surgeon about it a while ago ....he didn't seem that interested in bothering to do it and I wasn't squeezing him on price or anything ...asked me if council and sent me a letter about getting it felled etc

long story short he's not interested in the business.....am I stone mad bothering to do this?.....its out of fear they might fall more than anything, believe me I don't want the work of chopping it up into firewood etc (but the auld lad would never forgive me if I didn't get it for him if the trees are felled, he has a bee in his bonnet about firewood!)....

Do I have to wait until council tells me to do it or is it my responsibility...am I liable for damages if they fall or is it the councils responsibility to fell them when they decide?...(if so I cant understand why a tree near a road is left standing anywhere in the country)

even more hassle it has phone lines going through it

landcrzr

Hedge cutting is the landowners responsibility I'm afraid.

patsy_mccabe

Are the trees inside the boundry or just outside?

893bet

Tree surgeon could easily charge a grand for the day. Neighbour felled a dangerous tree. Too 3-4 men a morning and a bill of 700. 4 years ago.

Expensive firewood.

Aravo

patsy_mccabe wrote:

Are the trees inside the boundry or just outside?

No matter if inside or outside boundary. One generally owns to centre of road, so landowner responsilibity. Land direct would show this. Each year most councils post an advert on paper for landowners to cut hedges so no fall back on I never received a letter.

Aravo

amacca wrote:

Do I have to wait until council tells me to do it or is it my responsibility...am I liable for damages if they fall or is it the councils responsibility to fell them when they decide?...(if so I cant understand why a tree near a road is left standing anywhere in the country)

Perfectly good trees can come down in storms. But if the tree is rotting or considered dangerous and the owner did nothing and something happens then the owner has liability issues.

patsy_mccabe

Aravo wrote: »

No matter if inside or outside boundary. One generally owns to centre of road, so landowner responsilibity. Land direct would show this. Each year most councils post an advert on paper for landowners to cut hedges so no fall back on I never received a letter.

Well I wanted to cut 2 trees outside the boundry of my field on a national road and I was told not to cut them by the county council engineer.

Aravo

patsy_mccabe wrote:

Well I wanted to cut 2 trees outside the boundry of my field on a national road and I was told not to cut them by the county council engineer.

I can only imagine the Q's
Insurances
Traffic management plan
Method statement

Did they say not to cut them because the council owned them. What was wrong with the trees.

patsy_mccabe

Aravo wrote: »

I can only imagine the Q's
Insurances
Traffic management plan
Method statement

Did they say not to cut them because the council owned them. What was wrong with the trees.

I wanted them gone as they severely limit my visibility as I exit a field onto a busy national 2 lane road.
Lets just say if I knocked them the wrong way, I would have caused a traffic pile up. :cool:

I was told to contact TII to have them cut, by the way.

CloughCasey1

Was listening to Ivan Yates on the radio during the week.
They had 6 acres on the slaney on the way into Enniscorthy he was saying.
There was some of it on the main road. The whole lot of the 6 acres were covered in mature trees.
He wanted to cut the ones near the road.
He wasn't given permission by the council to cut them, not even if they were in danger of falling.
Thing is if they fell he was still liable if any injury or damage caused.
He gifted the lot of it to the council to get out of the problem.

amacca

CloughCasey1 wrote: »

Was listening to Ivan Yates on the radio during the week.
They had 6 acres on the slaney on the way into Enniscorthy he was saying.
There was some of it on the main road. The whole lot of the 6 acres were covered in mature trees.
He wanted to cut the ones near the road.
He wasn't given permission by the council to cut them, not even if they were in danger of falling.
Thing is if they fell he was still liable if any injury or damage caused.
He gifted the lot of it to the council to get out of the problem.

Ah ffs... this is the type of ****e that would make your blood boil ......either we are supposed to do it or not ....

Could I get the health of the trees assessed and ivy removed from them if they ok I wonder?

Feckin annoying that I'm responsible for them but it's not a straightforward matter of just getting them removed....one would surely have a case for being absolved of responsibility in an instance like that .... I can't afford to be gifting county council's acres of land ....although I could gift them a 60ft long by 3ft wide strip

Who should I contact first


There's also a sycamore smack bang in the ditch bordering that cottage and my field.... presumably that's not straightforward either, I'd imagine I can't just rock up and whip it.....i mean it's their ditch/boundary too

_Brian

Dairy farmer near us contacted council engineer as large beech tree at his entry was rotten and becoming dangerous, on an R not a N road.

He wanted to close the road for 30mimutes, use his own equipment temeporter and all to knock and clear the tree. Engineer refused permission and the tree stayed up a further two years.

Storm came and the tree fell and blocked the road. Then the approached the farmer to clear the tree as the firebrigade were clearing other bigger rods. He left it, bust milking and stuff, road was closed for few hours and he said the firebrigade cut it into handy lengths for the teleporter to get later in the day.

amacca

patsy_mccabe wrote: »

Are the trees inside the boundry or just outside?

They are in the ditch which is the natural boundary but I suppose legally I've always heard you own out to the middle of the road

Which always struck me as odd as it's not like I could block traffic having a picnic on my half of the road and tell any objecting motorist to kindly stop trespassing on my property.

Dunedin

Why not just belt away and knock the trees? Is it a crime to cut a tree?

amacca

Yeah thats fair I suppose Dunedin

the cons.....

1) Its definitely not a job I could undertake myself......the trees are very tall, I wouldn't be 100% confident I could make them fall the way I want and the proximity to a persons house and road means if I go at it I'd have to get help + Ill have to involve eir Id imagine to take down the lines that are going through them...

2) local tree surgeon wasn't really interested and i'm not interested in chasing him...but I could go looking for an alternative, I have a feeling it will cost a lot of money I'm not all that anxious to spend .....and more hassle cleaning up afterward......I spent the guts of 3 days cleaning up and chainsawing up an ash tree knocked by wind in another plot there recently and trailering it out. (this one well away from any road etc)

3) I'm not mad into cutting down healthy trees (if they are) ...its only due to fear of being liable or a potential accident I want them gone but I don't really know if i should want them gone, maybe they are grand for another 50 years for all I know

4) while it might not be a crime to cut a tree it seems at least as If I can't just decide to do it without notifying council etc ...basically I'm not sure i can just go and cut them down due to their location without involving people because if it goes wrong I'd definitely be liable so that makes me hesitate and I suppose I think the more you involve councils, engineers etc the messier something becomes and the less autonomy you have....so I'm stuck with indecision at the moment


the pros

I might avoid some of the above and it would be fantastic to just do it


I suppose I asked the question as I'm pissed off you can be made responsible for something with no clear direction on how to remedy the situation so its not your issue anymore as replies in this thread seem to back up......I posted hoping someone would have a clear step by step approach/sequence of events that solves the issue...but it seems as if its a grey area

ie: you are legally required to a) ask council to assess trees b) leave alone if they say so (and that absolves you of liability crucially) or if not then contact eir etc get them to take down lines and get a tree surgeon to fell etc

FishOnABike

Dunedin wrote: »

Why not just belt away and knock the trees? Is it a crime to cut a tree?

In general, under the forestry act 2014 you need to get a tree felling licence however there are a number of exceptions, one being, you can fell a tree outside a forest within ten metres of a public road if you have a well-founded opinion that the tree is in a dangerous condition.

https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/timber-harvesting/felling-of-trees---legal-requirements/

yosemitesam1

this was mentioned in the fj a few weeks ago. As long as you walk the boundary every six months or so and record if trees appear healthy, then you have no liability if one does fall. But if you don't do something about one that's clearly rotting, that's when you could be liable

amacca

FishOnABike wrote: »

In general, under the forestry act 2014 you need to get a tree felling licence however there are a number of exceptions, one being, you can fell a tree outside a forest within ten metres of a public road if you have a well-founded opinion that the tree is in a dangerous condition.

https://www.teagasc.ie/crops/forestry/advice/timber-harvesting/felling-of-trees---legal-requirements/

"well-founded opinion"

I wonder what meets the legal definition of a well founded opinion when its at home?

I have no basis for having an opinion either way, having almost zero knowledge beyond simply a visual inspection and seeing if they are obviously rotten from the outside......which they don't seem to be

I wonder can you get the council to inspect them or would that be a bad idea

amacca

yosemitesam1 wrote: »

this was mentioned in the fj a few weeks ago. As long as you walk the boundary every six months or so and record if trees appear healthy, then you have no liability if one does fall. But if you don't do something about one that's clearly rotting, that's when you could be liable

Well maybe I'm just making a mountain out of a molehill in that case, do you happen to know if thats a piece of legislation that can be looked up?


I wonder does recording mean writing it down on a scrap of paper or photos etc

is_that_so

Forestry Act
http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2014/act/31/enacted/en/html

Panch18

Forgiveness is easier sought than permission

A local businessman near here cut a load of trees years ago and the council were out to him to give him sh@t, his reply was “if you stand them up again I won’t cut them again”. And nothing more was done!!

yosemitesam1

amacca wrote: »

Well maybe I'm just making a mountain out of a molehill in that case, do you happen to know if thats a piece of legislation that can be looked up?


I wonder does recording mean writing it down on a scrap of paper or photos etc

https://www.independent.ie/business/farming/schemes/advice-are-land-owners-liable-for-damaged-caused-by-trees-and-hedges-36031108.html

Some sort of a sheet with dates, observations made and a signature, pictures would probably be beneficial also

ganmo

amacca wrote: »

"well-founded opinion"

I wonder what meets the legal definition of a well founded opinion when its at home?

I have no basis for having an opinion either way, having almost zero knowledge beyond simply a visual inspection and seeing if they are obviously rotten from the outside......which they don't seem to be

I wonder can you get the council to inspect them or would that be a bad idea

A tree surgeon would be of well founded opinion, as the tree surgeon has refused to do the job I'd say op is covered if the tree falls soon.

landcrzr

amacca wrote: »

Yeah thats fair I suppose Dunedin

the cons.....

1) Its definitely not a job I could undertake myself......the trees are very tall, I wouldn't be 100% confident I could make them fall the way I want and the proximity to a persons house and road means if I go at it I'd have to get help + Ill have to involve eir Id imagine to take down the lines that are going through them...

2) local tree surgeon wasn't really interested and i'm not interested in chasing him...but I could go looking for an alternative, I have a feeling it will cost a lot of money I'm not all that anxious to spend .....and more hassle cleaning up afterward......I spent the guts of 3 days cleaning up and chainsawing up an ash tree knocked by wind in another plot there recently and trailering it out. (this one well away from any road etc)

3) I'm not mad into cutting down healthy trees (if they are) ...its only due to fear of being liable or a potential accident I want them gone but I don't really know if i should want them gone, maybe they are grand for another 50 years for all I know

4) while it might not be a crime to cut a tree it seems at least as If I can't just decide to do it without notifying council etc ...basically I'm not sure i can just go and cut them down due to their location without involving people because if it goes wrong I'd definitely be liable so that makes me hesitate and I suppose I think the more you involve councils, engineers etc the messier something becomes and the less autonomy you have....so I'm stuck with indecision at the moment


the pros

I might avoid some of the above and it would be fantastic to just do it


I suppose I asked the question as I'm pissed off you can be made responsible for something with no clear direction on how to remedy the situation so its not your issue anymore as replies in this thread seem to back up......I posted hoping someone would have a clear step by step approach/sequence of events that solves the issue...but it seems as if its a grey area

ie: you are legally required to a) ask council to assess trees b) leave alone if they say so (and that absolves you of liability crucially) or if not then contact eir etc get them to take down lines and get a tree surgeon to fell etc

It's the roads act that defines the landowners responsibility. On mobile, so can't quote section now.
It's none of the council's business if you cut a hedge, they usually want you to. I suspect their concern is the safety of road users if you go at it yourself or with a tree surgeon they don't know. By the way, closing a national road cost a lot of money and disruption.
Regarding liability, this can only be decided once an issue goes to court, just because someone somewhere, council engineer or not, says all's hunky dory at some time will never remove your responsibility.
If you're really concerned, get another tree surgeon that has experience on roadworks and let them deal with the council directly.

Aravo

patsy_mccabe wrote:

I was told to contact TII to have them cut, by the way.

From TII website: Transport Infrastructure Ireland operates, maintains and improves the national primary and secondary road network in Ireland.

Aravo

Trees and Hedges along public roads (Section 70 of Roads Act, 1993 refers)

The maintenance of roadside trees, hedges and other vegetation is the responsibility of the landowners on whose land they are growing.

Landowners should ensure that trees, hedges or other vegetation are maintained in such a condition that they are not a hazard to road users or that they do not interfere with the maintenance of the public road.  In particular, branches, which jut out onto the road, should be cut back.  Dead and unsafe trees should be removed and hedges should be cut and trimmed.  It is recommended that professional advice on the condition of roadside trees should be obtained from time to time.

When landowners are maintaining hedges or trees all reasonable care should be taken to ensure the safety of road users and the landowner while this work is being carried out.

It is also important to remember that hedges provide shelter for nesting birds and small animals.  Hedge cutting should not be undertaken (except in the case of an emergency) during the nesting season, which is between 1st March and 31st August.