Grimsby Rugby Union Football Club Springfield Road Grimsby North East Lincolnshire DN33 3JF
Request to remove Ash (T2 of North East Lincolnshire Borough Council No.7 (R.U.F.C. Springfield Road, Scartho) Tree Preservation Order 1997)The client requests to remove the Ash due to the placement of a new Rugby Pitch. An Oak is proposed as a replacement tree.The tree has significant heartwood decay and has a predominantly hollow main stem. The stem diameter was measured to be approximately 1.2m at 1.5m above ground level. A cavity 0.2m below this was measured to be approximately 0.9m in depth indicating a residual total wall thickness of only 30cm. Additionally a 0.5m wide cavity was probed and measured to be 1.5m deep at the base indicating minimal support to the above structure. The cavity at the base is also failing to produce any reaction wood in an attempt to compartmentalise (left hand side of base photo) suggesting decay will continue laterally.There are also large cavities on the North, East and West sides in the upper part of the stem compromising structural integrity of the crown. With the tree existing as a lapsed pollard and with a sizable crown exposed to sail effect, it would be reasonable to presume that there is a significant loading on the compromised structure. A significant failure is highly probable at some point. Although the centre of gravity is biased towards the South it is worthy of note that there is a residential property located within 1x tree height to the North. With numerous cavities failure could be unpredictable.Whilst re-establishment of the lapsed pollard to reduce loading and preserve the tree could be a consideration, Tree Work Recommendations (BS 3998) part C.2 recommends re-retrenchment pruning when the pollard has lapsed. If this is carried out over a number of years to establish a pollard it may well be likely that the tree would fail at the basal cavity prior to completion.