The Municipal Tree Officers’ Association is a not for profit organisation dedicated to supporting municipal arboriculturists and urban foresters in the planting and care of trees and associated green infrastructure. Currently we have a membership of seventy eight local authorities and approximately two hundred individual members. The MTOA fully supports the ideas behind the draft BS 8545, 2013 (Trees from the nursery to independence in the landscape), the actual content and recommends that the draft is adopted as it is by the British Standards Institute, subject to minor technical changes required following the consultation exercise.

Currently there is a lack of in-depth guidance on establishing standard and larger sized trees in the UK and it is clear from government produced “Trees In Towns 2” report and anecdotal evidence that a significant number of standard and semi-mature trees that are planted in the UK never live long enough to become established in the landscape, let alone grow onto to maturity.

The UK faces severe climate change related problems and one of the solutions in helping to mitigate against the worst affects of climate change in our urban areas is to ensure that there is sufficient tree canopy cover and subsequent leaf area. To ensure that we have sufficient canopy cover, a significant number of trees will have to be planted in the near future. To ensure these trees become established, we need this British Standard to give up-to-date guidance to all professionals involved in planting trees to ensure that these planted trees not just survive bit grow on to become established mature trees.

Local Authority Tree and Landscape Officers are involved in assessing landscape schemes submitted for planning application development sites. Most of these schemes involve the planting of standard or larger sized trees. It is clear from the schemes submitted that there is a widespread lack of knowledge in the landscape industry on how trees grow, their soil and rooting volume requirements and the space required for the above ground parts of the tree. In addition planting and aftercare maintenance specifications are frequently not fit for purpose. Therefore it is not a surprise that so many planted trees do not survive, let alone grow onto independence in the landscape. This makes this draft British Standard so important, as there is a clear need for guidance on the subject.

With an influx of new imported tree diseases becoming established in the UK over the last fifteen years and even more becoming established on the continent, it is clear that the threat to both our urban rural tree populations is so significant that all steps to prevent new tree pests becoming established in the UK should be adopted. Thus, the MTOA fully supports the inclusion in the draft of the recommendation that all young trees produced abroad and imported into the UK by British nurseries for growing on are subject to a growing season quarantine period before being moved off the nursery. The MTOA would like to see this introduced not just for young trees, but for all trees imported in to the UK.  As has been shown with oak processionary moth and ash dieback, the direct importation of trees to be planted out in the landscape raises the risks of direct importation of non-native pests and diseases to an intolerable level and thus all imported trees should be subject to the same full growing season quarantine period as that proposed for young trees.