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UK Law Case |
Smith v Oliver.
Queens Bench Divisional Court. 1985 |
| The defendant
topped 5 trees, which were located within a conservation area, without first giving the
Local Authority the appropriate notice. In his defence he claimed that the trees were
dangerous and that he was lawful in his pruning because of the exemption within the Town
and Country Planning Act which allows for works on trees deemed to be dangerous. The
judgement was given in favour of the defendant and the prosecutors appeal was dismissed. The
case established that a tree does not necessarily have to show signs of disease or damage
to be classified as dangerous nor does a threatened danger actually have to occur. |
| "The threatened danger does not actually have had to have occurred;
it is sufficient to find that, by virtue of the state of the trees, their size, their
position and such effect as any of those factors have, one can properly conclude that the
trees have become dangerous. The justices should look at what is likely to happen, such as
injury to a passing pedestrian". |
| The judges also
concluded that... |
| "Of
course it does not mean that any individual who owns trees and wishes to remove them can
say to himself, 'having regard to their position, the way they have been planted and their
unsuitability, I can see that in a number of years they are going to constitute a danger'
and then cut them down. One has to look at the position at the time. If such damage is far
off, remote and not immediate in the sense that I have just described, the trees do not
come within the meaning of the exemption". |
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