'Duty of Care' Safety Survey of Trees on Green Spaces Sites

Nottinghamshire County Council's Green Spaces service manages a portfolio of approximately 90 so-called Green Spaces sites totalling some 1100 hectares across the county of Nottinghamshire. The sites are primarily located in the former coalfield area to the west and north of the County, although there are a small number of sites through the central belt of Nottinghamshire and also to the south and east of the city of Nottingham.

These sites are, in the main, restored colliery spoil heaps, disused mineral railway lines (now used as multi-user routes) and other land managed as informal green space principally for public recreation and biodiversity. Land use on these sites includes amenity woodland, conservation grassland, wetland, commercial forestry and some agricultural pasture.

As a result, the Green Spaces service manage a significant tree and woodland resource, with our tree stock located alongside the public highway, definitive rights of way, active railway lines, and residential and industrial property, in addition to the many miles of informal paths, tracks and trails that cross our sites. As a responsible landowner, we wish to ensure that these trees do not pose an unacceptable risk to the public.

We are therefore seeking a cost-effective and efficient 'duty of care' survey of the trees on up to 42no. of our Green Spaces sites and are inviting quotes to this end. The results of this survey must yield clear conclusions about the relative threat that any identified trees pose to the safety of the public or to adjacent property, along with clear actions to remedy these threats.