COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
Monday, February 08, 2016
QUESTION NO. 9
QUESTION: Councillor W. Lavelle
To ask for details of increased resources allocated to tree management operational functions in 2015 & 2016?
REPLY:
In 2015, in recognition of the increasing requirements for tree maintenance across the county and in an attempt to address the accumulation of tree maintenance commitments from previous years, the Council put in place, for the first time, a team largely dedicated to tree management. This team is charged with co-ordinating the tree maintenance programme and has embarked over the past year on a number of new initiatives to relieve the backlog of commitments and to enable progress towards an improved tree maintenance service and a more strategic approach to tree management.
During 2015, two skilled tree maintenance crews were put in place to progress implementation of the tree management programme on a year round basis. Prior to 2015, tree planting, pruning and removal was undertaken on a seasonal basis over a 4-month period between November and February when staff who were assigned to grass-cutting during the growing season were reassigned to tree works over the winter period. This in effect means that the Council is now undertaking tree maintenance throughout the year.
Since March 2015, additional staff resources have been applied to undertaking tree inspections and a number of staff have been upskilled in tree inspection training. As well as enabling tree inspections to be undertaken in response to tree maintenance requests received via the Council's customer care system, this has also facilitated the initiation of a countywide baseline survey of all Council owned and managed trees. This survey will be used to determine the extent of the requirement for tree maintenance on an estate by estate basis across the county and will inform the prioritisation of estates in future programmes of tree maintenance. A new tree management software system has been purchased to manage the tree survey data and this will be fully operational within the coming weeks. This system will enable the full history of every tree in the county to be traced including inspections, maintenance and related customer enquiries.
In October 2015, the Council's Tree Management Policy 2015 - 2020 'Living With Trees' was launched. The Tree Management Policy provides a framework to guide and support decisions made by the Council on the management and development of a sustainable tree population in the county. The Policy acts as a point of reference for the public, Councillors, Council staff and professionally interested people to enable informed discussion and to establish a clearer, consistent and more structured approach to the issues affecting trees.
In October 2015, a 'Trees’ web page was established on the Council’s website www.sdcc.ie. This page is intended to evolve as a key portal for information and education on all matters relating to tree management by South Dublin County Council. In 2016, this web page will carry regularly updated details of the 2016 Tree Maintenance Programme and the 2016 Tree Planting Programme so that current information is easily accessed by elected members and the general public. New material will be added to the 'Trees' page over the course of the coming year
The budget allocated to the Tree & Hedge Management Programme in 2016 is €2,003,600. This represents an increased investment of €200,000 over the budget allocation for tree management in 2015. The additional investment comprises €50,000 for a Tree Planting Programme of approx. 1,000 new trees which will commence implementation in autumn 2016 while an additional €150,000 is being allocated under the heading of Minor Contracts, Plant & Equipment. In recent years, due to the increasing demand for maintenance to be carried out on the c. 60,000 existing trees across the county, the Council has focussed the application of its available resources primarily on tree pruning and removal activity. This has resulted in very limited implementation of new or replacement tree planting across the county over the past few years. The additional budget allocation for tree planting in 2016 represents the Council's commitment to re-establishing a countywide, annual programme of tree planting.