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As far as I understand, that restaurant cut down a tree that wasn't theirs without contacting the owner (the local Council). Any individuals doing the same woul

As far as I understand, that restaurant cut down a tree that wasn't theirs without contacting the owner (the local Council). Any individuals doing the same would have been charged with criminal damage. Their apology and claim of "health and safety grounds" are rubbish in my opinion.

amiga386 1y ago
The restaurant conducted a safety review of its premises and the surrounding area, which it is legally required to. Even if it doesn't own the land, it is responisible for making sure it is a safe place for staff and customers. This tree overlooked their car park, and if it had fallen or its limbs broke off, could easily crush, maim or kill people. They relied on a specialist contractor to tell them whether all the trees in the vicinity were safe. The restaurant is legally required to mitigate hazards. The (unnamed) specialist contractor said this particular tree wasn't safe due to dead and splitting wood. While the tree is in this legally-non-binding inventory of ancient trees, it was not subject to any specific tree protection order at the time the contractor gave the advice. The restaurant took the contractor's advice and asked them to make it safe, which involved dismembering most of it. Only then did someone who actually cares about trees, and doesn't just see them as a box-ticking exercise or a way to make or save money, learn that this was happening and raise a fuss about it. And now the tree has a tree preservation order, after being hacked to bits. It could have had a tree preservation order at any time in the past, but it didn't. If it did have one, the specialist contractor would have known, and would have advised the restaurant differently. There aren't any specific villianous individuals anywhere in this story. This is a systematic problem, which is why tree heritage groups are campaigning for a law that protects ancient trees just for being ancient. The way you fight the mundane evil that is bureaucracy is you add more bureaucracy; add in more restrictions on what companies, councils, governments can legally do. Otherwise this happens, and so does this: * https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/06/sheffield-city-council-behaved-dishonestly-in-street-trees-row-inquiry-finds https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/06/sheffield-ci... * https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-64961358 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-64961358
- mytailorisrich 1y ago
  None of that gives the right to chop down someone else's tree on some else's land. The reasonable course of action was to contact the tree's owner and to cordon off the area "at risk" in the meantime. The only possible redeeming aspect is if the tree is part of the "demised land" of the restaurant, i.e. land that is part of their lease if they are leasing their premises (this is not mentioned in media reports as far as I know so it is unclear), but the reasonable course of action would still have been to contact the owner/landlord first as they usually must give permission. Trees are already protected because, again, no-one has the right to chop down a tree that does not belong to them. This is why the people who chop down the Sycamore Gap Tree were charged with criminal damage. A tree preservation order adds another layer of protection in that even it is your tree you are no longer allowed to do any work on it without the Council's permission. In this case it is possible that they simply did not think it was necessary as the tree was in a Council-owned park.
  - amiga386 1y ago
    The council own the land, and leased it to the restaurant. They claim the Toby Carvery "has broken the terms of the lease which requires Toby Carvery to maintain and protect the existing landscape" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/16/toby-carvery-could-face-1m-bill-chopping-500-year-old-oak/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/16/toby-carvery-cou... There's no need to see malice where indifference and incompetence will do. You need to do a box-ticking exercise, you buy in an expert. The expert says you need to do X, you don't press too hard against that. They say they can do it for you. You assume they know what they're doing and say "OK, do it". We'll have to wait for the courts to find out exactly who said what to who, and who made what decision, but this is about as much as we can infer for now. The tree's still gone.
    - mytailorisrich 1y ago
      Ah thanks. Then it won't be criminal damage, indeed. Still not sure where the scale between malice and incompetence stands on that one, though.
    - 1y ago
hilbert42 1y ago
"Any individuals doing the same would have been charged with criminal damage." We see too much of employees, CEOs, boards etc. doing unacceptable stuff and riding roughshod over everyone and then hiding behind the protection of their corporations. Statutory fine amounts are often set to be effective in normal circumstances, individuals, small and medium businesses, etc. but they're just small change to a large corporation. Clearly, the way around this is to strengthen laws so both corporations and their employees are fined. Corporate fines should be set as a percentage of turnover to a level where it actually hurts the offending corporation (its shareholded profits, etc.), also the individual perpetrators within the corporation would be charged separately. Much of this shit would stop if those responsible were hit with large fined and or thrown in the slammer. Being individually liable ought to send shivers down their spines, they'd then think twice before acting. It seems to me the only reason the Law doesn't make effective use of this 'dual' approach to enforcement must be threats from Big Business to lawmakers to the effect that employees would be less inclined to make decisions thus it would stymie buisnness as a whole (large sectors of the economy would suffer with reduced profits etc.). If not, what else is stopping lawmakers from acting? It's time laws were strengthened thus, we desperately need ways to reign in these wilful cowboys.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  Government beurocracies acting under the status quo will never reign this sort of abuse in of their own accord because doing so would be suicide for their own power. The exact same laws, precedents, etc that let CEOs not go to jail are leveraged to great extend by government agencies and the agents thereof so the government will never bring the cases needed to reverse the precedents. The solution must be legislative, so there must be public interest and political will that legislators seek to pander to. There isn't the interest or will to reign in the government, people want them to be able to ride roughshod over perceived wrongdoers. And there isn't political will to write legislation that has a double standard of formally exempting government activity. So the local minimum we're stuck in is that bad actors can "do whatever" as long as they do it as part of their day job and don't leave a flagrant paper trail.
  - 1y ago

amiga386 1y ago

The restaurant conducted a safety review of its premises and the surrounding area, which it is legally required to. Even if it doesn't own the land, it is responisible for making sure it is a safe place for staff and customers. This tree overlooked their car park, and if it had fallen or its limbs broke off, could easily crush, maim or kill people. They relied on a specialist contractor to tell them whether all the trees in the vicinity were safe. The restaurant is legally required to mitigate hazards. The (unnamed) specialist contractor said this particular tree wasn't safe due to dead and splitting wood. While the tree is in this legally-non-binding inventory of ancient trees, it was not subject to any specific tree protection order at the time the contractor gave the advice. The restaurant took the contractor's advice and asked them to make it safe, which involved dismembering most of it. Only then did someone who actually cares about trees, and doesn't just see them as a box-ticking exercise or a way to make or save money, learn that this was happening and raise a fuss about it. And now the tree has a tree preservation order, after being hacked to bits. It could have had a tree preservation order at any time in the past, but it didn't. If it did have one, the specialist contractor would have known, and would have advised the restaurant differently. There aren't any specific villianous individuals anywhere in this story. This is a systematic problem, which is why tree heritage groups are campaigning for a law that protects ancient trees just for being ancient. The way you fight the mundane evil that is bureaucracy is you add more bureaucracy; add in more restrictions on what companies, councils, governments can legally do. Otherwise this happens, and so does this: * https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/06/sheffield-city-council-behaved-dishonestly-in-street-trees-row-inquiry-finds https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/06/sheffield-ci... * https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-64961358 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-64961358

mytailorisrich 1y ago
None of that gives the right to chop down someone else's tree on some else's land. The reasonable course of action was to contact the tree's owner and to cordon off the area "at risk" in the meantime. The only possible redeeming aspect is if the tree is part of the "demised land" of the restaurant, i.e. land that is part of their lease if they are leasing their premises (this is not mentioned in media reports as far as I know so it is unclear), but the reasonable course of action would still have been to contact the owner/landlord first as they usually must give permission. Trees are already protected because, again, no-one has the right to chop down a tree that does not belong to them. This is why the people who chop down the Sycamore Gap Tree were charged with criminal damage. A tree preservation order adds another layer of protection in that even it is your tree you are no longer allowed to do any work on it without the Council's permission. In this case it is possible that they simply did not think it was necessary as the tree was in a Council-owned park.
- amiga386 1y ago
  The council own the land, and leased it to the restaurant. They claim the Toby Carvery "has broken the terms of the lease which requires Toby Carvery to maintain and protect the existing landscape" https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/16/toby-carvery-could-face-1m-bill-chopping-500-year-old-oak/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/04/16/toby-carvery-cou... There's no need to see malice where indifference and incompetence will do. You need to do a box-ticking exercise, you buy in an expert. The expert says you need to do X, you don't press too hard against that. They say they can do it for you. You assume they know what they're doing and say "OK, do it". We'll have to wait for the courts to find out exactly who said what to who, and who made what decision, but this is about as much as we can infer for now. The tree's still gone.
  - mytailorisrich 1y ago
    Ah thanks. Then it won't be criminal damage, indeed. Still not sure where the scale between malice and incompetence stands on that one, though.
  - 1y ago

hilbert42 1y ago

"Any individuals doing the same would have been charged with criminal damage." We see too much of employees, CEOs, boards etc. doing unacceptable stuff and riding roughshod over everyone and then hiding behind the protection of their corporations. Statutory fine amounts are often set to be effective in normal circumstances, individuals, small and medium businesses, etc. but they're just small change to a large corporation. Clearly, the way around this is to strengthen laws so both corporations and their employees are fined. Corporate fines should be set as a percentage of turnover to a level where it actually hurts the offending corporation (its shareholded profits, etc.), also the individual perpetrators within the corporation would be charged separately. Much of this shit would stop if those responsible were hit with large fined and or thrown in the slammer. Being individually liable ought to send shivers down their spines, they'd then think twice before acting. It seems to me the only reason the Law doesn't make effective use of this 'dual' approach to enforcement must be threats from Big Business to lawmakers to the effect that employees would be less inclined to make decisions thus it would stymie buisnness as a whole (large sectors of the economy would suffer with reduced profits etc.). If not, what else is stopping lawmakers from acting? It's time laws were strengthened thus, we desperately need ways to reign in these wilful cowboys.

potato3732842 1y ago
Government beurocracies acting under the status quo will never reign this sort of abuse in of their own accord because doing so would be suicide for their own power. The exact same laws, precedents, etc that let CEOs not go to jail are leveraged to great extend by government agencies and the agents thereof so the government will never bring the cases needed to reverse the precedents. The solution must be legislative, so there must be public interest and political will that legislators seek to pander to. There isn't the interest or will to reign in the government, people want them to be able to ride roughshod over perceived wrongdoers. And there isn't political will to write legislation that has a double standard of formally exempting government activity. So the local minimum we're stuck in is that bad actors can "do whatever" as long as they do it as part of their day job and don't leave a flagrant paper trail.
- 1y ago