alt Hacker NewsAs far as I understand, that restaurant cut down a tree that wasn't theirs without contacting the owner (the local Council). Any individuals doing the same would have been charged with criminal damage. Their apology and claim of "health and safety grounds" are rubbish in my opinion.
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The restaurant conducted a safety review of its premises and the surrounding area, which it is legally required to. Even if it doesn't own the land, it is responisible for making sure it is a safe place for staff and customers.
This tree overlooked their car park, and if it had fallen or its limbs broke off, could easily crush, maim or kill people.
They relied on a specialist contractor to tell them whether all the trees in the vicinity were safe. The restaurant is legally required to mitigate hazards.
The (unnamed) specialist contractor said this particular tree wasn't safe due to dead and splitting wood. While the tree is in this legally-non-binding inventory of ancient trees, it was not subject to any specific tree protection order at the time the contractor gave the advice.
The restaurant took the contractor's advice and asked them to make it safe, which involved dismembering most of it. Only then did someone who actually cares about trees, and doesn't just see them as a box-ticking exercise or a way to make or save money, learn that this was happening and raise a fuss about it.
And now the tree has a tree preservation order, after being hacked to bits. It could have had a tree preservation order at any time in the past, but it didn't. If it did have one, the specialist contractor would have known, and would have advised the restaurant differently.
There aren't any specific villianous individuals anywhere in this story. This is a systematic problem, which is why tree heritage groups are campaigning for a law that protects ancient trees just for being ancient.
The way you fight the mundane evil that is bureaucracy is you add more bureaucracy; add in more restrictions on what companies, councils, governments can legally do. Otherwise this happens, and so does this:
* https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/06/sheffield-ci...
"Any individuals doing the same would have been charged with criminal damage."
We see too much of employees, CEOs, boards etc. doing unacceptable stuff and riding roughshod over everyone and then hiding behind the protection of their corporations.
Statutory fine amounts are often set to be effective in normal circumstances, individuals, small and medium businesses, etc. but they're just small change to a large corporation. Clearly, the way around this is to strengthen laws so both corporations and their employees are fined.
Corporate fines should be set as a percentage of turnover to a level where it actually hurts the offending corporation (its shareholded profits, etc.), also the individual perpetrators within the corporation would be charged separately.
Much of this shit would stop if those responsible were hit with large fined and or thrown in the slammer. Being individually liable ought to send shivers down their spines, they'd then think twice before acting.
It seems to me the only reason the Law doesn't make effective use of this 'dual' approach to enforcement must be threats from Big Business to lawmakers to the effect that employees would be less inclined to make decisions thus it would stymie buisnness as a whole (large sectors of the economy would suffer with reduced profits etc.). If not, what else is stopping lawmakers from acting?
It's time laws were strengthened thus, we desperately need ways to reign in these wilful cowboys.