National Tree Safety Group (NTSG) – Tree Management for Public Safety Insights

In 2024 the National Tree Safety Group (NTSG – https://ntsgroup.org.uk/) released an update to their 2011 publication, Common Sense Risk Management of Trees.

The document offers guidance on trees and public safety in the UK for owners, managers and advisers.

We are delighted to have been a part of this process and can share some insight from Treework founder and director Neville Fay who chaired the National Tree Safety Group (NTSG) editorial team.

Here is what Nev had to say about the new second edition publication:

“I am proud of Treework’s leadership role supporting sustainable tree safety management guidance in our sector.

The second edition of the NTSG’s Common Sense Risk Management of Trees is the result of decades of debate, shared experience and consultation within the arboricultural, land management, legal and risk analysis disciplines.  The consultation has included discussion and debate with stakeholders and the Health and Safety Executive (who endorsed the document).

In the thirteen years since the first edition, there has been extensive research into the wide-ranging benefits of trees and mainstream recognition of the value of deadwood (for habitat, wildlife and biodiversity) which has influenced our approach to lifespan tree management.  These sections had previously been end-appendices (and therefore easily overlooked), and in recognition of their importance are elevated to front-end chapters.

The second edition reconfirms the NTSG Five Key Principals:

1. Trees provide a wide variety of benefits to society.
2. Trees are living organisms, and they naturally lose branches or fall.
3. The overall risk to public safety is extremely low.
4. Tree owners have a legal duty of care
5. Tree owners should take a balanced and proportionate approach to tree risk management

As a result of consultation, we sought to clarify the fundamental legal framework, and the respective implications of criminal law and of civil law. While the criminal law relates to health and safety, the civil law takes into consideration the benefits of trees (‘benefit-risk assessment’) reflecting evidence-based social, economic, environmental and biodiversity benefits from trees.

Tools to inform and support land and tree owners and arboricultural practitioners to develop tree safety policy and management strategy are presented in Chapter 7 Scenarios (which have increased from six to nine) accompanied with introductory flow diagrams to aid duty holder risk decision-making.

The chapter outlining the reasonable balanced and proportionate approach to tree risk management precedes the scenarios.  This has been extensively revised as it underpins the primary goal, to conserve trees and the benefits that they provide for nature and society through proportionate sustainable management. I use the term Conservation Arboriculture to describe appropriate management of trees that can allow them to pass through there lifespan.”

In light of the National Tree Safety Group (NTSG) publication, you can now purchase the hard copies of the books and even download a Free PDF version. There are two versions of the books ‘Common sense risk management of trees: Full guidance’ and ‘Common sense risk management of trees: Summary’.  Click on the link below to get your copy – https://ntsgroup.org.uk/.