What Value a TPO Workshop?

To answer that ask any contractor who has been interviewed under caution as required by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (P.A.C.E.) by an  Enforcement (Tree) Officer who is about to strongly recommend a prosecution to his/her Local Authority legal section.

On first reading Section VIII of the Town & Country Planning Act, (which is the section that deals with TPOs), looks fairly straightforward. However, in reality it is a complex area of law and it cross-refers to other parts of the Act and indeed to other primary legislation. However, there are clear guidelines that if followed can make it far less likely that you would ever fall foul of TPO legislation, but even here there is complexity.

Perhaps it’s no coincidence that if followed, those guidelines will ensure that TPO’d trees are successfully protected for the benefit of all. These two primary reasons are why CAS is offering the TPO Workshop as a new baseline qualification to Professional CAS Membership.

Everybody who specifies tree work or surveys and assesses trees needs this qualification because the clients to whom they are offering advice can reasonably expect them to know everything they need to know about the primary instrument protecting trees in this country.

This might be the first consulting level qualification that a contractor needs, indeed it is probably the most important, and it is equally applicable to Local Authority Tree Officers who want to creatively work with responsible contractors. It also applies to those in the Consulting sector whose jobs involve more complex aspects of Arboricultural advice.

For Consulting Arboriculturists it is a chance to revise and update their knowledge. Therefore, following the very positive response of all the attendees at the first Workshop last April at Capel Manor who have expressed comments (and many of them did) we are holding the second TPO Workshop in November in Liverpool.