COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, September 09, 2019

QUESTION NO. 38

QUESTION: Councillor C. O'Connor

To ask the Chief Executive to confirm his plans to deal with the many calls received regarding Trees which require immediate attention and cannot wait for the Maintenance Programme to catch up and will he appreciate the frustration in many communities at the situation and give assurances.

REPLY:

The Council's Tree Management Policy 2015-2020 "Living With Trees", states that the focus of the Tree Maintenance Programme is on entire roads or whole estates. This represents a move away from reactive pruning of individual trees on a one off basis to a planned programme of maintenance. The objective of this approach is to increase the efficiency and productivity of the tree maintenance crews and to advance a proactive programme of cyclical pruning that is targeted at priority locations where intervention is most needed to yield wider community benefit.

The Council receives a large number of queries regarding trees, requesting inspections, planting, removal, pruning and tree stump removals. In 2018, 4,728 queries were received and  up to 27th August 2019, 3011 queries were received.

Each of the trees relating to the queries are inspected, in addition to the trees on the planned tree maintenance programme. If the trees require immediate attention, this is arranged. However in 95% of cases, no immediate work is required. Residents may not always accept this as they have individual concerns regarding the trees.

The Council will continue to carry out the planned tree maintenance programme and also carry out maintenance on trees in other locations which require immediate action.

In addition to the Council's tree crews, contractors carry out work on trees close to elctricity wires and on dangerous trees.

Where trees which have been identified as requring immediate or specialised attention, this work has been arranged -  examples at the following locations