| Neville Fay M.A. (Hons),
F.L.S. M.Arbor.A
Neville
Fay is managing director and principal consultant at Treework
Environmental Practice.
He has been working in the field of arboricultural consultancy
and in environmental and habitat management for twenty five
years.
Neville has specialised in a number of key areas focusing
on the importance of identifying, assessing and resolving
conflicts linked to the wide range of values and interests
associated with trees. This approach has frequently led to
research commissions and large-scale population surveys.
A number of projects in which he is involved deals with the
importance of the wide-ranging attributes connected with tree
populations under study. Projects typically require the needs
of trees to be balanced with such factors as public and employer
safety, biodiversity, landscape, historic and amenity values.
Neville considers that tree inspection procedures need to
be informed by the study of physiological processes. While
observations of trunk, branch and foliage morphology and condition
contribute to making reasonable diagnosis, the below-ground
complex ecology associated with soils and tree roots, though
less-evident, is nonetheless a crucially important factor
influencing health and stress in trees. Therefore this mostly
invisible world needs considerable study and to be increasingly
incorporated in tree health and condition assessments.
He also considers that it is important to attempt a proper
understanding of tree-related hazards, as well as habitats
and other values for which owners and occupiers have responsibility,
to be able to appropriately support and advise clients to
achieve a reasonable ‘non-defensive’ policy for
meeting duty of care.
This has led to a reputation for his holistic approach to
consultancy that draws together threads and expertise from
many disciplines. Projects are undertaken that include both
resource evaluation and comprehensive management programmes,
considering all the relevant functions that tree owners and
managers might have.
Neville's approach is non-hierarchical, placing great emphasis
on individual responsibility and team-building within the
multi-disciplinary Practice. Therefore those involved are
expected to contribute professionally through their own study,
passion, commitment and dedication appropriate to meeting
client objectives.
The practice is supported through the application of up-to-date
information technology and has developed a database approach
for field-work recording, linked to mapping and reporting
software. This approach has involved the collection and accumulation
of a considerable volume of data. These are now being used
imaginatively to develop research projects for the benefit
of the Practice as well as study initiative to better inform
the industry and profession.
Neville is Chairman of the Ancient Tree Forum,
and founder of Tree Aid (the latter involved
in partnership arrangements mobilizing aid between forestry/arboriculture
industries and village-scale tree planting schemes in sub-Saharan
Africa).
Neville lectures and publishes widely on veteran trees, arboriculture
and the development of appropriate techniques for managing
trees for hazard and habitat. He has also initiated the TEP
seminar series, Innovations in Arboriculture, which aims to
raise levels of awareness and knowledge in arboriculture by
bringing ideas that are not yet commonly understood or applied
in the UK.
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