We are pleased to inform our clients that Matthew Shute recently attended a course of training in the principles and application of the Quantified Tree Risk Assessment System. East Devon Tree Care is now certified to undertake Quantified Tree Risk Assessments (QTRA) for landowners, local authorities, parish councils and developers to quantify the level of risk posed by a tree in its current condition and location.

Land owners and Estate managers have a duty of care to ensure other people are not endangered by trees on their property.  To fulfil this duty of care, a regular inspection of all trees should be made by a competent arboriculturalist.

The Quantified Tree Risk Assessment Method

“Tree safety management is a matter of limiting the risk of harm from tree failure while maintaining the benefits conferred by trees. Although it may seem counter intuitive, the condition of  trees should not be the first consideration. Instead, tree managers should consider first the usage of the land on which the trees stand, and in   turn this will inform the process of assessing the trees.

The Quantified Tree Risk Assessment (QTRA) system applies established and accepted risk management principles to tree safety management. Firstly, the use of land upon which trees could fail is assessed and quantified, thus enabling tree managers to determine whether or not and to what degree of rigour a survey or inspection of the trees is required. Where necessary, the tree or branch is then considered in terms of both impact potential (size) and probability of failure. Values derived from the assessment of these three components are used to calculate the probability of harm.

The system moves the management of tree safety away from labelling trees as either ‘safe’ or ‘unsafe’ and thereby away from requiring definitive judgements from either tree assessors or tree managers. Instead, QTRA quantifies the risk of significant harm from tree failure in a way that enables tree managers to balance safety with tree values and operate to predetermined limits of tolerable or acceptable risk”

For further details please read more on the QTRA website.

If you need a tree inspection carried out for trees on your property, please do not hesitate to give us a call on 01395 279101 or email info@eastdevontreecare.co.uk