Red gum pruning of neighbours’ tree not done illegally, court Court clears property owner and arborist
A property owner who pruned his neighbours’ river red gums without their knowledge – sparking an Adelaide council to take legal action against him – has been cleared of any wrongdoing.
East, Inner Suburbs & Hills
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A tree lopping company and a property owner, who trimmed his neighbours’ two river red gums without their knowledge, have been cleared of illegally pruning the trees.
Unley Council launched legal action against Tim Crichton, Zbigniew Bendyk, Tempest Trees and its director Dylan Tempest for alleged tree-damaging activity when pruning two regulated Hyde Park river red gums without their neighbours’ knowledge.
The trees’ owners, Justin Struik and wife Amy Simons, were in Normanville on the 2015 October long weekend – and came home to find a large proportion of the trees on their back boundary missing.
The Environment Resources and Development Court heard that Mr Crichton – who leased his property – and Mr Bendyk had branches falling on their properties and had hired Tempest to trim branches back to their fence lines.
They did not seek council approval for the work, and the court heard that up to 90 per cent of the crown of one tree and 50 per cent of another had been removed.
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Maintenance pruning of less than 30 per cent of a regulated tree crown does not need approval if pruning is to remove dead or diseased wood, or the branches pose a risk.
Mr Bendyk pleaded guilty ahead of trial for tree damaging activity but Judge Jack Costello cleared Mr Crichton and Tempest Trees of the charges.
In his ruling he interpreted the crown of the tree to be the “live leaves and branches” of the trees, rather than “total crown” which he said included mistletoe and “dead, cracked or otherwised diseased wood”.
He said he was “unable to assess with any degree of certainty” what was the percentage of total crown that was removed although it was “likely to have been considerably more than 30 per cent of total crown.”
He said he was not satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that the work undertaken by Tempest Trees constituted tree-damaging activity.
But he did find Mr Tempest guilty on two counts of failing to obey the council’s request for information or answer questions during its investigation into Ms Simon’s complaint.