asset management plan for highway plants

8/11/2019 Asset Management Plan for Highway Plants

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London Borough of Hounslow Highways Asset Management Plan 2009

Version 3 (2009)

Page 175

Street Environment Lifecycle Plan

Scope

This section of the Asset Management Plan deals with

Street Trees Grass verges and other grassed and shrub areas. Hanging baskets and flower beds

Introduction and Background

The street trees, verges and shrub areas play an essential role inensuring that our streets are attractive and pleasant places for thepeople of the borough to use. Not only do they improve the quality ofthe boroughs streets but they are also fundamental living resources,needed to counteract environmental problems such as air pollution.

A key challenge is ensuring that these resources are managed to balancethe need to invest, particularly in the tree stock, in order to preserve theintegrity and value of physical assets against the need to provide a highquality service to our customers.

Ensuring that our town centres are vibrant and enjoyable spaces means

that a high quality environment using attractive plants will ensure thatthe perception of the borough will increase.

These valuable assets are a living part of the street scene and thereforehave to be cared for and managed appropriately.

The borough is encouraging the Cleaner Safer Greener agenda and bymanaging our grounds maintenance and street trees correctly we canenhance the street scene and subsequently the environmental quality ofthe borough.

Trees in particular also play a vital role in urban wild life and thereforefeed into sustainability and biodiversity issues.

The street trees and highway ground maintenance area has recentlybeen put out to tender. The process reviewed the old specification,

which historically has been under-funded for many years and thisresulted in the borough having poor quality shrub areas and a back logof tree maintenance of 8 years.

The re-tendering process meant the specification could be written todeal with the historical funding issues and poor shrub maintenance the

borough has received over the last 8 years.


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The tendering process also revealed that the service was not fundedadequately to get the quality service the borough needs.

We have received additional one off funding to assist the service in2005 2006 and 2006 2007.

In 2005 06 this was used to reduce all of the shrub areas in height,remove all litter and rubbish from the sites and regenerate the

vegetation. It also allowed us to provide works to a considerablenumber of trees using the new regime developed as part of the re-tendering process.

Inventory

Street Trees

There are some 10,094 street trees within the borough. Of these 2,666are lime trees and plane trees which are worked upon every three years.

There are also 2,374 trees that are a variety of Prunus (flowering / fruittrees), and a considerable amount of Ash (340) and Maples (1,047).

The rest of the street tree stock is made up of a variety of other species.

Tree sizes are as follows:

Very large Large Medium Small

1,066 1,820 3,719 3,489

Highway Grounds Maintenance Assets

Shrub beds 6,663sqmFlower beds 7sqmGrass 83,432sqmHedges 5841sqmRose beds 70sqm

Approach to condition and need assessment

The adopted approach for tree management in the borough is basedaround a three year cycle. This commences with a full survey of allstreet trees and follows with prioritised pruning operations.


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UrgentHigh riskDecayed, dead, dying,

diseasedSeriously overgrown

Year 1

April 2005 March 2006

Non UrgentMedium RiskFuture Encroachment likelyPruning to reduce future riskGood Pruning Practice

Years

2-3 April 2006 March 2008

Low risk No work required - resurvey in threeyears

Table Tree Management Cyclical Timetable

The lime and plane trees have particular issues and therefore aresubject to a different regime of being crown reduced every three years.

This break down to a third of the stock of limes and planes is workedupon every year.

Trees are also worked upon if there is an immediate health and safetyissue or a specific reason and this will be through instruction from theCommunity Environment Team.

The shrub areas were identified as being in poor condition and havereceived regeneration works in 2005 2006. This has entailed cutting

shrubs back to approximately 800mm in height.

The tree stock in Hounslow is in predominantly fair to good health,with some 9,073 trees falling into the categories of Fair, Good andExcellent and only 562 which are classified as poor; the figure belowillustrates this point.


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Overview of current approach

Verges

Grass verges are cut 15 times per year and obstacles strimmed 15 timesper year.Each time the verges are cut the litter is removed first.47,205 linear metres are winter edged each year.

Shrubs

Shrubs are pruned twice a year to a height of no greater than 1m. Thiswork takes place in May to September a light prune of current seasongrowth to maintain sight lines; then a winter prune in October toMarch which is a hard prune to reduce height.

Other Routine works

This includes weed spraying, removing litter, maintenance of hedgesand rose beds and also any flowers and summer bedding.

Town centres

The town centres have a higher specification, the area included is a500m radius around the town centres.

This includes 20 grass cuts and strim to all obstacles. Shrubs will bepruned twice per year and weed spraying occurs 7 times per year.

Tree Survey

The street trees will be surveyed every three years; this is goodarboricultural practice and also assists with mitigation for insuranceclaims.

Lime and Plane trees

These trees receive crown reduction every three years.


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Other street trees.

The survey generates work based on the criteria as above590 trees have basal growth removed every year.Stump removal is usually carried out a couple of days after the treesremoval.

Data and Systems

The assets were mapped in 2003/04. The changes are made by CIP

who keep the systems up to date. CIP use Confirm. An aspiration isthat the Community Environment Team have read-only immediateaccess to this system.

Contractual mechanisms

Grounds Maintenance and street trees went out to tender in the springof 2005 and the contracts were awarded to CIP in August 2005. Thecontract is for 5 years with a 2 year extension.

Documentation and standards

The draft tree strategy is written and forms the basis for currentpractice but has not yet been formally adopted as policy.

The specification is clear and useable; it also states various standardsthat the Contractor must be accredited with or working towards, e.g.ISO 9001 and be approved by the Arboricultural Association.

Arboricultural work is carried out to the British Standards that areappropriate for the works.

Consultation mechanisms

When a tree has to be removed we advise the residents that areimmediately affected and also the Ward Councillors. However, if it isan emergency and we cannot inform residents prior to the removal, weadvise the Ward Councillors in retrospect.

When the work towards the draft Tree Strategy was initiated a surveywas placed in the HM magazine to establish the views of residents onstreet trees.


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Table - Summary Of Survey Results

Both CIP and the Community Environment Team are workingtowards getting ISO 9001 accreditation and this will include regularCustomer Satisfaction surveys.

National and Local PIs

There are currently no performance indicators for this area. Howeverthe Contractor and Community Environment team are workingtowards putting sensible informative Performance Indicators in place.

Process Descriptions

Highway Grounds Maintenance and Street Trees

The Community Environment Officers monitor the routine works. Ifissues are raised these are discussed with the Team Leaders from CIPand resolved. If the matter cannot be resolved at this level it isdiscussed at the monthly Contract meetings.

Trees are dealt with as shown in the process diagram below

AreaChiswick

Nos.

Isleworth &Brentford

Nos.

HounslowCentralNos.

Heston &Cranford

Nos.

WestNos.

Total Nos.

Trees 3163 1914 1890 1893 1361 10221

Population 31409 41659 42631 44047 52595 212341

Properties 13990 18422 16148 15711 22633 86904

Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No Yes No

Do you like treesin an urbanenvironment?

162 5 159 3 113 5 68 1 110 4 612 18

Do you live in aroad with trees init?

165 2 123 34 73 41 56 12 78 35 495 124

If yes would youlike the trees toremain

114 38 110 19 77 39 50 7 64 19 415 122

Should the largertrees be loweredmore frequently?

96 67 66 86 71 49 30 35 47 52 310 289

Should theCouncil be guidedby residentsviews?

150 12 135 19 99 16 56 9 93 8 533 64

Should theCouncil act asguardian for thefuture?

151 12 148 9 115 3 63 3 104 4 581 31

Are you interes tedin being a TreeWarden

80 75 73 77 52 66 35 32 49 53 289 303


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Hierarchy

As mentioned the town centres have a slightly higher specification.The areas involved are Hounslow Town Centre, Chiswick High Road,Brentford High Street, Hounslow West and Feltham High Street.

The lime trees and plane trees are worked upon every three years athird of the stock per year. This is a rolling programme of maintenance.

asset management plan for highway plants

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