[HN Gopher] UK's Ancient Tree Inventory
___________________________________________________________________
UK's Ancient Tree Inventory
Author : thinkingemote
Score : 46 points
Date : 2025-05-14 10:11 UTC (12 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ati.woodlandtrust.org.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (ati.woodlandtrust.org.uk)
| pjc50 wrote:
| Archive.org link since it's already creaking a bit:
| https://web.archive.org/web/20250403094724/https://ati.woodl...
|
| Most interesting examples are at
| https://web.archive.org/web/20240112222212/https://ati.woodl...
| and
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210926031301/https://ati.woodl...
| Namari wrote:
| Good idea, though it's failing to load when you point to another
| city than the one that was loaded automatically
| JimDabell wrote:
| If you like this, you might also like OpenTrees.org:
|
| > OpenTrees.org is the world's largest database of municipal
| street and park trees, produced by harvesting open data from
| dozens of different sources.
|
| -- https://opentrees.org/
| hermitcrab wrote:
| opentrees.org seems to have very little data on the UK.
| keepamovin wrote:
| Cool! I like how the official UK site in the OP avoids having a
| stuffy generic name and just goes with "Ancient". I guess this
| is like Java-speak for picking BritishBuild over
| UKExcludingNITreeFactoryConstructorPattern
| Lio wrote:
| For fans of Giant Redwoods in the UK there is also
| https://www.redwoodworld.co.uk/locations.htm
| RetroTechie wrote:
| https://www.monumentaltrees.com
| ta1243 wrote:
| The Sycamore Gap tree was only about 150 years old. Sure it was
| striking given the position, but the outrage over it seems to be
| somewhat overexagerated.
|
| Compare far less outrage when a restaurant chain chopped down a
| 500 year old tree. Where are the nationwide discussions about
| whether the CEO or branch manager (heh) or whatever should be
| going to prison for 5 years or 10 years.
| graemep wrote:
| Negligence vs clear criminal intent.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| As far as I understand, that restaurant cut down a tree that
| wasn't theirs without contacting the owner (the local
| Council). Any individuals doing the same would have been
| charged with criminal damage. Their apology and claim of
| "health and safety grounds" are rubbish in my opinion.
| amiga386 wrote:
| The restaurant conducted a safety review of its premises
| and the surrounding area, which it is legally required to.
| Even if it doesn't own the land, it is responisible for
| making sure it is a safe place for staff and customers.
|
| This tree overlooked their car park, and if it had fallen
| or its limbs broke off, could easily crush, maim or kill
| people.
|
| They relied on a specialist contractor to tell them whether
| all the trees in the vicinity were safe. The restaurant is
| legally required to mitigate hazards.
|
| The (unnamed) specialist contractor said this particular
| tree wasn't safe due to dead and splitting wood. While the
| tree is in this legally-non-binding inventory of ancient
| trees, it was not subject to any specific tree protection
| order at the time the contractor gave the advice.
|
| The restaurant took the contractor's advice and asked them
| to make it safe, which involved dismembering most of it.
| Only then did someone who actually cares about trees, and
| doesn't just see them as a box-ticking exercise or a way to
| make or save money, learn that this was happening and raise
| a fuss about it.
|
| And now the tree has a tree preservation order, after being
| hacked to bits. It could have had a tree preservation order
| at any time in the past, but it didn't. If it did have one,
| the specialist contractor would have known, and would have
| advised the restaurant differently.
|
| There aren't any specific villianous individuals anywhere
| in this story. This is a systematic problem, which is why
| tree heritage groups are campaigning for a law that
| protects ancient trees just for being ancient.
|
| The way you fight the mundane evil that is bureaucracy is
| you add more bureaucracy; add in more restrictions on what
| companies, councils, governments can legally do. Otherwise
| this happens, and so does this:
|
| * https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
| news/2023/mar/06/sheffield-ci...
|
| * https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-64961358
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| None of that gives the right to chop down someone else's
| tree on some else's land. The reasonable course of action
| was to contact the tree's owner and to cordon off the
| area "at risk" in the meantime.
|
| The only possible redeeming aspect is if the tree is part
| of the "demised land" of the restaurant, i.e. land that
| is part of their lease if they are leasing their premises
| (this is not mentioned in media reports as far as I know
| so it is unclear), but the reasonable course of action
| would still have been to contact the owner/landlord first
| as they usually must give permission.
|
| Trees are already protected because, again, no-one has
| the right to chop down a tree that does not belong to
| them. This is why the people who chop down the Sycamore
| Gap Tree were charged with criminal damage. A tree
| preservation order adds another layer of protection in
| that even it is your tree you are no longer allowed to do
| any work on it without the Council's permission. In this
| case it is possible that they simply did not think it was
| necessary as the tree was in a Council-owned park.
| amiga386 wrote:
| The council own the land, and leased it to the
| restaurant. They claim the Toby Carvery "has broken the
| terms of the lease which requires Toby Carvery to
| maintain and protect the existing landscape"
|
| https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/16/toby-carvery-
| cou...
|
| There's no need to see malice where indifference and
| incompetence will do. You need to do a box-ticking
| exercise, you buy in an expert. The expert says you need
| to do X, you don't press too hard against that. They say
| they can do it for you. You assume they know what they're
| doing and say "OK, do it".
|
| We'll have to wait for the courts to find out exactly who
| said what to who, and who made what decision, but this is
| about as much as we can infer for now. The tree's still
| gone.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Ah thanks. Then it won't be criminal damage, indeed.
| Still not sure where the scale between malice and
| incompetence stands on that one, though.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >The expert says you need to do X
|
| There is quite a strong incentive for the 'expert' to say
| you 'need to do X' when they will get paid for doing it.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >There is quite a strong incentive for the 'expert' to
| say you 'need to do X' when they will get paid for doing
| it.
|
| Even if they're not being paid for the work they're still
| gonna be conservative to cover their own ass because
| they're accountable to their own licensing board or
| there's some 3rd party government or perhaps private
| stats tracking their screw ups or whatever.
|
| This is what you get when you have a subset of the
| general public hellbent on requiring that nothing get
| done without consulting a dozen different licensed
| professionals oversight by multiple departments, etc,
| etc.
|
| In a "simple" evaluation of incentives there is no
| incentive to cut the tree if it's not a fairly undeniable
| hazard but the simplicity has been polluted with a
| complex spaghetti of requirements.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Or in this case you contact the owner of the tree before
| doing anything so that everything is agreed without
| surprises and arguments.
|
| Especially it seems that the Council had apparently done
| their own assessment recently without finding issues: "
| _According to the council leader, their experts said the
| tree was healthy and alive in December 2024._ " [1]
|
| [1] https://www.lbc.co.uk/news/uk/toby-carvery-faces-
| legal-actio...
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Sure, in fantasy land. In reality the council made the
| leaseholder responsible for upkeep and maintenance and
| the last thing the council wants is to be contacted about
| the specifics of that because it comes off as an attempt
| to shift liability, which governments hate almost as much
| as uppity subjects, and any attempt to do so would likely
| have been met with stonewalling or some nonproductive
| ass-covering which would have driven up the scope and
| invasiveness of the tree clearing operation. Say nothing
| of the cost of all that communication. Maybe if there was
| a borderline improperly close between the government
| officials involved and the people working on behalf of
| the restaurant there could have been an off record
| conversation in good faith but without someone willing
| (because they're getting paid or otherwise) to stick
| their neck out the council isn't gonna say off record let
| alone go on record saying anything less than "get rid of
| anything and everything that could be a hazard" (with the
| judgement thereof to be performed by some party who will
| take on the liability).
|
| The liability and responsibility situation is just to
| goddamned convoluted for any honest and reasonable
| exchange to happen.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| No, that's not fantasy land at all, this is common sense,
| standard practice, and the default position if you are a
| tenant.
|
| There was no urgency: If some expert said the tree was
| dangerous then it would have been cordoned off while
| remedy was arranged. It was costing nothing to inform the
| landlord/owner.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| We are not talking about asking your landlord if you can
| hang some window flower baskets from your studio. We are
| talking about a contract clause on the order of "keep the
| f-ing yard mowed and the trees trimmed" between two big
| evil organizations where Statistically Nobody(TM) really
| cares.
|
| I understand there's no urgency but regardless of
| timeframe it's just not reasonable to expect discussions
| to happen between government and a tenant in the way you
| think they should in the current regulatory environment.
| Nobody's immediate interest is served by doing it that
| way and everyone's interest is served by doing it the way
| they did except in this rare case the public interest and
| it blew up and became a "court of public opinion" thing
| hence the lawsuits flying every which way and the finger
| pointing.
|
| If you want to see organizations act how you seem to want
| toward government then government needs to change.
| Organizations are unfeeling and sociopathic in pursuit of
| their goals. They are keeping the .gov at the maximum
| arms length possible, spreading liability all around, and
| letting these processes hum along and "fail" in dumb ways
| that are probably obvious to the people on the ground
| (but of course nobody will take on the responsibility of
| raising objection) because those failures are less
| terrible when they do occasionally happen than the kind
| of problems you'd get they didn't make it SOP to run the
| way they run.
|
| The common sense you speak of has been implicitly
| outlawed by the high tax of liability that is levied upon
| it.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" Any individuals doing the same would have been charged
| with criminal damage."_
|
| We see too much of employees, CEOs, boards etc. doing
| unacceptable stuff and riding roughshod over everyone and
| then hiding behind the protection of their corporations.
|
| Statutory fine amounts are often set to be effective in
| normal circumstances, individuals, small and medium
| businesses, etc. but they're just small change to a large
| corporation. Clearly, the way around this is to strengthen
| laws so both corporations and their employees are fined.
|
| Corporate fines should be set as a percentage of turnover
| to a level where it actually hurts the offending
| corporation (its shareholded profits, etc.), also the
| individual perpetrators within the corporation would be
| charged separately.
|
| Much of this shit would stop if those responsible were hit
| with large fined and or thrown in the slammer. Being
| individually liable ought to send shivers down their
| spines, they'd then think twice before acting.
|
| It seems to me the only reason the Law doesn't make
| effective use of this 'dual' approach to enforcement must
| be threats from Big Business to lawmakers to the effect
| that employees would be less inclined to make decisions
| thus it would stymie buisnness as a whole (large sectors of
| the economy would suffer with reduced profits etc.). If
| not, what else is stopping lawmakers from acting?
|
| It's time laws were strengthened thus, we desperately need
| ways to reign in these wilful cowboys.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Government beurocracies acting under the status quo will
| never reign this sort of abuse in of their own accord
| because doing so would be suicide for their own power.
| The exact same laws, precedents, etc that let CEOs not go
| to jail are leveraged to great extend by government
| agencies and the agents thereof so the government will
| never bring the cases needed to reverse the precedents.
| The solution must be legislative, so there must be public
| interest and political will that legislators seek to
| pander to. There isn't the interest or will to reign in
| the government, people want them to be able to ride
| roughshod over perceived wrongdoers. And there isn't
| political will to write legislation that has a double
| standard of formally exempting government activity. So
| the local minimum we're stuck in is that bad actors can
| "do whatever" as long as they do it as part of their day
| job and don't leave a flagrant paper trail.
| hilbert42 wrote:
| _" The solution must be legislative, so there must be
| public interest.... There isn't the interest..."_
|
| Sometimes I despair. I recall when doing Pol. Sc. decades
| ago Plato's criticisms of democracy and the more I
| observe its dysfunctional aspects the more I agree with
| him. Same with Churchill's sentiments.
|
| As they day, "God helps those who help themselves", if
| the electorate isn't interested and or cannot understand
| the problems then dysfunction will continue and bad
| actors will have a field day.
|
| I'm out of my depth here, I speculate about why the
| electorate isn't interested in helping itself but that's
| more a job for sociologists and psychologists, and I'm
| neither.
|
| Ah well....
| DrBazza wrote:
| You mean the tree cut down in or next to the Tottenham Hotspur
| training ground, or proposed development (I forget).
|
| Also, the tree cut down by the restaurant chain, that's part
| owned by... one of the owners of Tottenham Hotspur FC.
|
| Also the same club that couldn't redevelop their stadium until
| the scrap yard opposite vacated, which they refused to do. Then
| it 'mysteriously' burnt down.
|
| Also, also, I don't subscribe to conspiracy, and I think these
| are just unfortunate random occurences. Million to one events
| happen 9 times out of 10.
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| Outrage is an emotion. The Sycamore Gap Tree was very famous,
| symbolic and a landmark, and thus its felling triggered a big
| emotional response even if arguably the felling of a 500 year
| old oak by that Toby Carvery restaurant is in a way "worse",
| indeed.
| physicsguy wrote:
| Famous and symbolic since 1991 when it was in a Hollywood
| film...
| jimnotgym wrote:
| And Sycamore is an invasive non-native species that gets
| actively removed from ancient forest as a weed.
| FiniteField wrote:
| The outrage over the Sycamore gap felling, while somewhat
| justified, is mostly an outlet of expression for a latent
| feeling of nationalism that the ruling and middle classes of
| Britain feel they aren't allowed to acknowledge, even to
| themselves. There's no world where it's logically consistent
| that the felling of a 150-year-old tree is a national outrage,
| but the dissolution of the indigenous ethnic groups of Britain,
| almost within a single generation, with their 2000 years of
| history on the island, is not worth even commenting on (or is
| even something to celebrate).
|
| For an even clearer example, see the case of the red squirrel.
| trextrex wrote:
| Which are the indigenous ethnic groups experiencing
| dissolution?
| FiniteField wrote:
| White British is an ethnic umbrella recognised by the
| British government. In the last recorded statistics, the
| White British population in Britain had been reduced to 54%
| by births, and dropping significantly each year. A
| generation ago Britain was 90-95% White British. It's a
| staggering, utterly unprecedented rate of demographic
| change that historians will look back on with the same or
| greater significance as the Anglo-Saxon or Norman
| invasions.
| GlacierFox wrote:
| Why have you highlighted this expression as something
| latent in the middle and ruling classes? I 100% agree
| with what you're saying and most of my 'lower class'
| (like myself) council housed friends I discuss this sort
| of thing with do also.
| physicsguy wrote:
| Because it's not au fait to express such opinions in
| middle class circles is what I think he means. He is
| correct to some extent.
| pxeger1 wrote:
| I agree it is happening and is and will be interesting to
| study, but I don't think there is any reason other than
| racism to be outraged by it.
| FiniteField wrote:
| I don't mean to say this as a challenge to what you said,
| but as a genuine question: Do you hold any value in the
| continued existence of the red squirrel in Great Britain?
| Would you see its extinction as any kind of loss? I know
| many people that are hugely invested in securing the red
| squirrel, but would never be seen dead expressing any
| kind of hesitancy towards the idea of their own ethnic
| group disappearing. I've always found it a little odd,
| given that squirrels don't have culture, traditions, or a
| written history attached, and it's purely aesthetic.
| DonaldFisk wrote:
| > In the last recorded statistics, the White British
| population in Britain had been reduced to 54% by births
|
| According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_British
| , "In the 2021 Census, the White British group numbered
| 44,355,044 or 74.4% of the population of England and
| Wales." In Scotland the percentage is 87.1%.
|
| You might be referring to the percentage of recent births
| to non White British parents, which is a different thing.
| (And, if someone's parents are, say, Polish, but they're
| born in the UK, surely that makes them White British.)
|
| > It's a staggering, utterly unprecedented rate of
| demographic change that historians will look back on with
| the same or greater significance as the Anglo-Saxon or
| Norman invasions.
|
| Well, we mostly speak English with a lot of vocabulary
| from Norman French, rather than Welsh or a close relative
| of it as we would have done had those invasions never
| happened. And I don't see that changing as a result of
| recent immigration.
| FiniteField wrote:
| Demographics by births are much more meaningful than the
| total population because it's only births (and more
| immigration of course) that informs all future
| generations. Even if all immigration was halted today,
| the Britain of the future will be ~50% native (not taking
| into account the statistically lower native birth rates).
|
| >if someone's parents are, say, Polish, but they're born
| in the UK, surely that makes them White British
|
| Not exactly. "White British" as a compound noun means
| "ethnically British", not "white AND a British citizen".
|
| >Well, we mostly speak English with a lot of vocabulary
| from Norman French, rather than Welsh or a close relative
| of it as we would have done had those invasions never
| happened. And I don't see that changing as a result of
| recent immigration.
|
| Large areas of England do not speak English as their
| first language, and there are rapidly evolving youth
| dialects with strong black and other minority ethnic
| influences. As a reminder, the mutation of Old English
| due to Norman French influences took centuries. It's not
| at all out of the question that even the current already-
| done migration may cause the largest transformation of
| the language since the Normans.
| rainingmonkey wrote:
| Exactly, Britain for the Britons! Anglo-Saxons out, and take
| your ugly Germanic language with you!
| hermitcrab wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cgeXd5kRDg
| hermitcrab wrote:
| >is mostly an outlet of expression for a latent feeling of
| nationalism
|
| I don't think so. It was the fact that it was such a
| pointless act of vandalism that caused so much outrage.
| amiga386 wrote:
| > with their 2000 years of history on the island
|
| Dude, stop fucking people about. The country was usurped
| about 1000 years ago by Frenchmen of Danish heritage and they
| rubbed the native Anglo-Saxon faces into the dirt. And those
| Anglo-Saxons had similarly usurped native Celtic peoples
| around 600 years before that. And let's not get into these
| Celtic people fighting Pictish people for control of proto-
| Scotland.
|
| Trying to bundle all the UK's myriad historic ethnicities
| into a single "white british" category so you can _other_
| everyone else is nationalist bullshit.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| And ultimately, we all came from Africa's rift valley. We
| are all immigrants in the UK. It is just a matter when.
| Lio wrote:
| I think the difference in outcry is because we know exactly who
| cut the 500 year old Enfield tree down.
|
| These's no mystery, it was Toby Carvery owners Mitchells &
| Butlers plc.
|
| It's also well known that they are now facing legal action
| because of this, so currently it seems that some kind of
| justice may be served.
|
| That wasn't the case for Sycamore Gap. When that first happened
| it was a mystery who had committed a senseless act of vandlim
| and if they would get away with it.
|
| The discussion of whether Phil Urban, Mitchells & Butlers CEO,
| should go to prison or not will happen when the case goes to
| trial (...but we all know he won't).
| physicsguy wrote:
| It's also a non-native species to the U.K.!
| metalman wrote:
| there was an(old old) tree, and surounding medow destroyed for a
| roundabout(recent), not just any tree, but one with a literary
| conection, the authors name escapes me, the house of the author
| is part of the councils holdings, as was the tree and medow, but,
| famously, as per another author, "but roundabouts must be built",
| england somewhere , last 3-4 years
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| love the idea and the data but the map just being kinda broken
| ruins this, the markers disappear when you zoom in, doesn't show
| the image of the tree when you click on it.
|
| if you were trying to find interesting trees to visit with this
| in a browsing way it would be tedious.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| It is perhaps just a bit overloaded from the HN attention.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Brilliant resource. I'm not sure about the word 'inventory'
| though. Wikipedia says:
|
| "a quantity of the goods and materials that a business holds for
| the ultimate goal of resale, production or utilisation"
|
| I hope that ancient trees are more than that.
| RetroTechie wrote:
| Wiktionary:
|
| _2. A detailed list of all of the items on hand.
|
| 3. The process of producing or updating such a list.
|
| From Latin "invenio" ("to find out")_
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Ancient Tree Inventory_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38318132 - Nov 2023 (11
| comments)
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-05-14 23:00 UTC)