Garden Cottage Upper Street Tingewick Buckinghamshire MK18 4QL
The tree in question is a silver birch. The tree is now between 15 and 20m tall, located in the middle of the garden. It presents a danger to the house (which is less than 15m away). It also prevents our plans for solar panels on the south facing garage roof to the rear (subject to heritage permission as we are a grade II listed building), and it is far too large for the location it currently occupies. When planted, the tree was at the end of the garden (hence the boundary of the conservation area was set at the end of the original garden. Since then however the garden has been extended, and the tree has grown to a height out of proportion with its location in the garden. Our plan is to replace this tree with two much smaller ornamental cherry trees, which will be kept at the same height as the apple trees on the other side of the path (see photo 3) around 3-5 meters high. We will take down the tree, and use the majority of the canopy for mulch within our garden. Once the root is ground out the new trees will be planted. We have taken advice from Nick Hanks at Greensleeves Estate and Countryside management who has done work on the tree in the past, but taking height out of the tree will leave it misshapen, as its not a species that responds well to having the canopy reduced, and as we would like to fit solar panels over the next couple of years, this work would be a precursor to any solar work being successful. The work to remove the tree will be done by Greensleeves and the timing of the work also agreed with Greensleeves to avoid any sensitive times of year, particularly nesting season.