alt Hacker NewsThe 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...
None of that gives the right to chop down someone else's tree on some else's land. The reasonable course of action was to contact the tree's owner and to cordon off the area "at risk" in the meantime.
The only possible redeeming aspect is if the tree is part of the "demised land" of the restaurant, i.e. land that is part of their lease if they are leasing their premises (this is not mentioned in media reports as far as I know so it is unclear), but the reasonable course of action would still have been to contact the owner/landlord first as they usually must give permission.
Trees are already protected because, again, no-one has the right to chop down a tree that does not belong to them. This is why the people who chop down the Sycamore Gap Tree were charged with criminal damage. A tree preservation order adds another layer of protection in that even it is your tree you are no longer allowed to do any work on it without the Council's permission. In this case it is possible that they simply did not think it was necessary as the tree was in a Council-owned park.