To chop or not to chop, councillors set to decide future of troublesome young oak trees in Milton Keynes

When residents in Bow Brickhill Road, Woburn Sands, approached Milton Keynes Council about chopping the trees down on a neighbour’s land, officers slapped a temporary tree preservation order on the oaks.

That temporary tree preservation order (TPO) makes it a criminal offence to damage the trees without permission.

Now the homeowner and MWA Arboriculture Ltd have objected to the tree preservation order being made permanent.

This means the contentious issue has to be decided by councillors at a meeting of the development control panel (DCP) next Thursday (February 25).

Background papers have pointed to the sharp disagreements the homeowners have with council officers over their advice. They wanted both trees removed.

The council’s tree officer has accepted that roots were observed and that subsoil below the foundations of the house are “susceptible to a change in volume under the influence of vegetation.”

The officer also accepts that damage to the house is due to clay shrinkage and that it is “probably an oak tree contributing towards the subsidence.”

However the officer does not accept that the roots are definitely from the tree in question, called T2, and wants the home owners to consider underpinning or a root barrier instead of chopping the tree down.

The report to councillors for this week’s meeting said: “Despite the owners dismissing root barriers as not being a viable alternative to felling, this technique is commonly employed, and no technical evidence has been submitted to show that this and underpinning could not be undertaken at the site.”

As for the other tree, T1, which is “also implicated in the subsidence at the property” the council’s officers don’t accept this as being certain.

They have proposed making the tree preservation order permanent to protect the amenity of the area. The homeowners would then have to apply to prune the tree instead of chopping it down.

“Should further information connecting this tree with subsidence be discovered in the future, this could be supplied in support of an application for consent for works to the tree,” the report reads.

Members of the committee have been advised that they can accept or reject the TPO, or modify the order to remove only one of the trees.

The DCP meeting will start at 7pm next Thursday and will be broadcast live on the council’s YouTube channel.