Community and School Site Tree Questions Checklist

Walk the site, mark each tree or group on a plan with a number, and keep that plan as the reference for everything else.

Numbered positions let a concern about one tree be raised without describing it to somebody who has never been there.

Photograph each numbered tree whole, from far enough back to show it against what is beneath and around it.

A whole-tree photograph with its surroundings visible is what an arboricultural professional can actually use.

Record groups, hedgerows and boundary lines as well as individual trees, noting where a group crosses the boundary or overhangs something else.

Boundary vegetation is where most community tree questions arise and is the part least often recorded.

Note what sits beneath and beside each tree, such as a playing surface, a path, a play area, seating, parking or a building.

What is underneath decides which questions matter, and it is the part a list of species alone leaves out.

Note anything known about when and why trees were planted, including memorial planting or trees planted as part of a past scheme.

Origin frequently comes with obligations or sensitivities that a later committee knows nothing about.

Agree who updates the tree record and how often, so that it does not become a one-off exercise nobody ever repeats.

A tree record made once is out of date within a few years, and the next committee treats it as unreliable.

Record which surfaces receive leaf fall, when in the year it happens, and what has to be done about it.

Leaf fall governs the upkeep of every surface it lands on and is rarely connected to the tree that produces it.

Note where material from trees reaches gratings, channels or drainage features on the site, who clears it, and how often that happens.

What collects at a grating names its source, and the source is usually the more useful half of the problem.

Note anything that falls other than leaves, including fruit, nuts, seed, sap or small branches, and where it lands.

Some of these matter for surfaces, some for parked vehicles and some for how a surface behaves underfoot.

Note where shade falls across a surface during the playing season, and whether those areas behave differently in wet weather.

Shaded ground dries differently, and the pattern is frequently blamed on drainage rather than on canopy.

Record when in the year each of these things happens, so the upkeep attached to them can be planned rather than reacted to.

Almost all of this is predictable, which is what makes a record worth more than a complaint.

Record what falls and what it costs in upkeep, and leave any question about the tree itself to a qualified professional.

A record of consequences is useful evidence; a committee view about a tree's future is not.

The condition and management of any tree is a determination for a qualified arboricultural professional.

Note where a path, surface or edge is lifting, cracking or narrowing near a tree, and photograph it from a fixed position.

Surfaces report on what is beneath them, and a fixed viewpoint is what makes the change readable over time.

Note where a tree or hedge is growing against a boundary, over a neighbour's ground, or over a road or footway.

Growth across a boundary involves other parties and takes far longer to resolve than anything on the site itself.

What may be done about growth across a boundary is a matter for the parties involved, the landowner and the relevant authority.

Note where a tree is in contact with a fence, wall, store, floodlight column or any structure, and photograph the contact point.

Contact with a structure is a specific observation rather than a general complaint, and it travels well.

Note where growth affects sightlines at an entrance, a car park or a route people walk in the dark.

These are the concerns most likely to be raised by users and least likely to be on any list.

Note any tree growing close to a ditch, an outfall or a drainage feature, and record it as a question rather than a finding.

The relationship is for somebody qualified to interpret, but the position is something a volunteer can record.

Record self-seeded trees and scrub separately, particularly along boundaries and around structures, since these arrive without anybody ever deciding to plant them.

Most awkward trees on community sites were never planted, which is why they are on nobody's list.

Record trees growing on neighbouring land that overhang the site, noting who owns each one and whether anybody has spoken to them.

What overhangs a playing surface or a car park is frequently not the group's tree, which changes who has to be involved.

What may be done about growth arriving from neighbouring land is a matter for the parties involved, the landowner and the relevant authority.

Ask the local authority whether any tree on the site is subject to protection, and record what you were told, by whom and when.

This is a local question with a local answer, and groups routinely act before asking it.

Whether a tree is protected, and what that means, is confirmed with the local authority; requirements vary by location and by site.

Ask whether the site sits in an area where additional requirements apply to trees, and record the answer alongside the tree list.

Area-based requirements catch groups out because they attach to the location rather than to the tree.

Check whether any past planning permission, grant or agreement attached conditions about trees on this site, and gather whatever paperwork survives.

Planting done as a condition of something else carries obligations the current committee has never seen.

Establish who would need to agree before any tree work happened, including the landowner, the authority and any other party.

Permission usually involves more parties on a shared site than a committee expects.

Keep the answers with the tree record rather than leaving them in correspondence, noting the date each answer was given and who gave it.

Answers of this kind are re-sought every few years because nobody wrote down the last one.

Agree that no tree work is arranged before these answers are in, including work a volunteer could do with a saw.

The informal cut is exactly the work most likely to happen without any of these questions being asked.

Record honestly any tree work already carried out on the site, including anything done by a volunteer, and whether permission was sought.

Past work is part of the site's history and will come up, and the conversation goes considerably better if the group raised it.

Establish who owns the land each tree stands on, including trees on a boundary or just beyond it, and write down how you established it.

Ownership of the tree follows the land, and boundary trees are where that gets complicated.

Find what the lease, licence or agreement says about trees and grounds, and note what it puts on which party.

The document frequently answers a question the committee has been debating without reading it.

What any lease or agreement requires is a matter for the parties to it and their own advisers, and varies by site.

Ask who arranges any tree inspection on this site, how often, and whether the group is told the outcome.

Inspection frequently happens without the users being told, or does not happen while everybody assumes it does.

Tree inspection is carried out by qualified arboricultural professionals under arrangements made by the responsible party.

Establish who arranges and pays for tree work on this site, and whether that is the same party who arranges any inspection.

Where the two sit in different places, findings tend not to become work.

Get a named person at each party rather than an organisation, record how to reach them, and note when that was last confirmed.

A concern addressed to an organisation circulates; one addressed to a person gets answered.

Write a short list of who is responsible for what, and keep it with the tree record for the next committee.

Every new committee member begins by needing exactly this list and usually reconstructs it from scratch.

Agree one way for anybody to report a concern about a tree, and make it something a visitor could actually use.

Where there is no route, concerns are mentioned to whoever is nearest and go no further.

Name the person who receives reports and the person who covers when they are away, rather than directing them to the committee.

Reports addressed to a committee wait for a meeting, which is not how urgency works.

Write down what happens to a report once received, including who it is passed to and within what kind of timescale.

A route that stops at the first recipient is not a route, and users stop using it after the first time.

Keep a dated log of every concern reported, what was done and what the outcome was, however minor it seemed.

The log is the record that shows the arrangement is working, and it is the first thing anybody asks for.

Agree who looks at the site after high winds or storms, and what they do if they see something, without assessing anything themselves.

Looking and reporting is a volunteer task; judging what has been seen is not.

What a volunteer sees after a storm is reported rather than assessed, and whether anything follows from it is for a qualified arboricultural professional to say.

Tell users, parents and neighbours how to report a concern about a tree, since a route that nobody knows about receives nothing.

The people best placed to notice are the ones least likely to know who to tell.