In the middle of a water crisis the council doesn't offer the same service for free beyond the water meter.
Neither does the electrical supplier come assess your wiring beyond the meter box.
Why is it the tree industry seems to get shafted from so many angles?
So in effect if you lived on a modest 3000m2 block you could request removal of every tree and they would have to come and assess them all ... for free. Seems to be shifting responsibility away from the tree owner to.
Where trees have obvious defects and evidence supporting such with no loss of habitat they could just express them through, then for other requiring more scrutiny they throw it back on the arborist to supply the data.
The interesting part here is if
they currently are responsible for all vegetation assessments then they know what the decision making parameters are. For instance how hollow, what degree of lean, what target value, species, etc etc. They are making the same decision so all we need to do is provide the data, and earn a living rather than see our job taken away.
They could, and other councils do, provide a reference sheet of criteria they need, species, DBH, ht, age, vigour, inclusions, hollows, defects, habitat, previous failures/broken limbs etc. Not rocket science, and they can spend more time managing their own trees in their own properties/parks etc.
I am a believer in governments are there to govern, not take my job, perhaps if they did more governing than trying to do our jobs they'd have a more efficient and less costly burden torate payers.
It took GCCC almost 2 weeks to assess trees on a vacant block, they're very busy you know, had I have had to write a report for those trees would have had the same outcome. Three trees had to stay, I already told my client that I doubted they'd get permission to remove them as there were no defects and they were semi mature of good form in a spot where there was no building.
I often inform people that where the tree is healthy and there's no defects it's a futile exercise getting a report as I cannot condemn the tree, however the report will give you management options and an obligation to care for the said protected trees ... where in lies another anomaly.
As custodians of a protected tree there is no obligation to care for it. In fact park your boat there then take out the bungs after a day on the salt water, rinse your weed spray pressure pack out there and always degrease your engine there. These things are true, then when the tree is dead council will let you take the tree down. However, if you were obligated to care for that tree and lost a bond if it died you might have a vested interest in getting an arborist annually for a check up and to make sure the tree is managed.
As you can see, many ideas can work, if you are fair dinkum about trees and our industry.