Visitor Safety in the Countryside Group

The Health and Safety Executive has recently given new advice to its inspectors and local authority enforcement officers with regard to tree safety.

In the light of this, and recent accidents involving falling trees, VSCG members have been looking afresh at their policies.  This is summarised in our new good practice guidance.  Please let us know what you think.

Readers may be interested in a recent civil case - Poll v Bartholomew, May 2006.  The case is considered important as it suggests the levels of inspection required to fulfil a tree owner’s duty of care.  A summary and the full judgment can be found on the web pages of the Arboricultural Information Exchange - http://www.aie.org.uk.

I am in the category of finding difficult to apply sensible risk management to trees.  We are currently formalising our tree safety recording procedures and would welcome any guidance / examples of other peoples reporting forms to assist in this process.  The RSPB case study is helpful and it would be useful to know if there is anyone else out there who is willing to share information
Izi Banton, Sherwood Forest National Nature Reserve.

Hi Izi
The VSCG will be considering a number of papers on tree risk assessment (including RSPB and NT revised protocols) at our next meeting in March 2007.  We are aiming to publish new guidance on the website shortly afterwards.

I came across this guidance when looking at another forum.

http://www.buckscc.gov.uk/schools/documents/hands/5_17.pdf

(I should stress that the VSCG has not yet considered it!)

I was just wondering if there had been any further developments on the good practice guide in terms of Tree Risk manangement in light of the latest HSE guidelines?
Izi

Hi Izi,
There are some developments - we have working on the VSCG guidance following the publication of the HSE Sector Information Minute on ‘Management of the risk from falling trees’ in July, and a final draft is being circulated at the moment among our members, so we would hope to be able to publish the final version before too long.

For those who have not come across the HSE SIM before, you can find it on HSE’s web pages at http://www.hse.gov.uk/foi/internalops/sectors/ag_food/1_07_05.pdf

The British Standards Institute (BSI) has recently proposed a new standard for Tree safety Inspections.

The VSCG has considered the proposal and is strongly opposed to its introduction.  Our reasons are set out in a letter to the BSI which can be found at http://www.vscg.co.uk/documents/uploads/VSCG_response_to_proposed_BSI_Standard_for_Tree_Safety_Inspections_July08.doc

The Risk & Regulation Advisory Council (RRAC) has been asked by the Prime Minister to encourage sensible approaches to risk management.  They looked at the proposed BSI standard and were also against it. The Council also quote HSE on the matter:

The Health and Safety Executive agree that a lighter touch should be possible. HSE Chief Executive, Geoffrey Podger, said: “In 2007 HSE became concerned that uncertainty was causing some organisations to over-react to the low risk from falling trees. HSE therefore produced guidance for its inspectors on what is required by the law we enforce - the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. It makes the point that the risk is generally extremely low. For most trees around the countryside HSE does not believe any action at all is reasonably practicable under the 1974 Act. Where trees are in very public places we suggest that non-specialist staff with a working knowledge of trees should look out for obvious problems as part of their everyday work. Inspection by tree experts is likely to be appropriate only in very limited circumstances, for example where a tree in a very public area is known to be unstable but is kept for heritage or other reasons. There are several other relevant pieces of non-HSE law; we have encouraged stakeholders to agree a simple and proportionate approach to cover all the legal duties. We hope that by sharing our own guidance we have provided a useful starting point.

The RRAC press release can be read in full in the good practice guidance for tree safety management on the web pages. http://www.vscg.co.uk/documents/uploads/RRAC_press_release_June_2008.pdf