Welcome to January!

Whatever happened to the first weeks of January?
As in previous years snow has struck (but it was in February last year as I recall) meaning that our tree assessors have been held up: it has not been possible for Henry and Nick to make as comprehensive assessment of site conditions as they would like, and so our production levels on the Oxford contract are down. We now have two hand-held data loggers on the go; both are Magellan’s MobileMapper loaded with DigiTerra software, with which Henry and Nick are becoming most proficient!

Expressly interesting
Unfortunately I decided that I could not proceed to tender for the research project for which I had been shortlisted – I felt that the brief was too open and that there was simply too much risk involved for me. I do hope that someone with an arboricultural interest, and a stronger nerve, was able to make an offer so that the industry might stand a chance of seeing an end-user’s voice as the foundation for an important guidance document.

The Registered Social Landlord’s project is taking shape, but again has been delayed by snow on the ground – there’s no chance to identify the grounds maintenance features that the client wants if all we can see is snow! I have emailed a load of would-be assessors and surveyors with information about this job, and another in the Midlands – if you want to know more then please don’t hesitate to contact me direct!

I have been working on an offer to a London borough that wants to outsource almost all of their arboricultural expertise and service delivery, this is the sort of instruction that really floats my boat and so I’m looking forward to being able to hone and burnish my offer so that it dazzles!

In practice
I’m overseeing a small service delivery contract; again the weather has played its part here. Because the site is relatively well protected, the trees are small and some of the work can be done from the ground the contractor has brought me forward in his programme. Completion is scheduled for Monday, weather permitting.

I have tried to keep our field team busy away from a snow-bound Oxford, with a couple of other projects for colleagues in the office, one in Walsall and another in Harlow. It has been very interesting for me to discuss with Nick how he can bring his experience, as a former Tree Officer, to the reports that he has drafted for those instructions.

I hope that a small project in Nuneaton can soon be put to bed; it has been most helpful to me to have the opportunity to bring a range of valuable comments from the arboricultural professionals that I deal with into my report on behalf of my client. Hopefully, the outcome will be consent for the proposed development.