Two lime trees in the churchyard had been felled following consent given by the archdeacon under List B. Such consent can be given if (a) the tree is dying or dead or (b) the tree has become dangerous.
In 2019, the PCC received a report from the county council, following a tree health and safety survey, which recommended the felling of one lime tree (T1) and significant re-pollarding of another (T2), ‘to a point from which [it] may recover’. Having received the report, the PCC voted to fell both trees; to which, following consultation with the DAC, the archdeacon consented under List B. On the eve of the felling of T2, a complaint was lodged with the Registry and the archdeacon opposing the work. The complaint was dismissed, and T2 was felled. The matter came to the court's attention when the court was informed that a disciplinary complaint was to be brought against the archdeacon for giving his approval in relation to T2.
The court had to decide whether the felling of the trees was properly a List B matter or whether there ought to have been a petition for a faculty; and if so, what further steps should be taken. The court considered the CBC guidance ‘Works to Trees in Churchyards’. For the purposes of List B, a ‘dying’ tree was one in rapid decline and expected to be dead within one or two years; an old tree, in slow decline, was not a ‘dying’ tree. A ‘dangerous’ tree was one posing an immediate and serious danger.
The court found that T1 was dying. A faculty was therefore not required, and the archdeacon's consent was appropriate. However, the report had not suggested that T2 was not dying or dangerous. As a result, permission to fell T2 had been granted in error. Nevertheless, the error was one of procedure rather than substance. T2 had been re-pollarded following the report; but the tree surgeon had advised that T2 was in fact unsafe to remain, resulting in the decision to fell it. That advice would have been sufficient for the archdeacon to conclude that it was dying and/or dangerous, so the end result was one that could permissibly have been reached without a faculty.
In order to cure the defect in the earlier purported grant of List B consent for T2, the Court granted a confirmatory faculty of its own motion, subject to conditions. [Naomi Gyane]
