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Report for West Street, Kingham Background

(Location Map of West Street, Kingham)

This report is in relation to works carried out by utility contractors, under instruction from Gigaclear, around the base of trees that are maintained by Oxfordshire County Council (OCC) in West Street, Kingham between Honeystone Cottage and Well Cottage. The works were in relation to installation of a broadband cable that were carried out in November 2019. Residents highlighted to OCC Officers that the works undertaken by Gigaclear’s contractors to create a trench (approximately 35cm wide and 60cm deep) were:

• not done by hand;

• within 2m of the base of some trees;

• undertaken by mechanised machinery resulting in roots being removed. Residents of Kingham and the Parish Council had concerns about the impact to the established line of trees along West Street of the works. These were:

• the stability of the trees;

• the long-term impact to the health of the trees;

• the risk of imminent tree failure.

OCC met with Gigaclear, residents and their contractors on site in Kingham on 27th November 2019 and had further meetings on site in early December 2019, where it was agreed that Gigaclear’s contractors would re-excavate any of their trenches that were underneath the tree canopies potentially effected by the works. This would then enable OCC’s Tree Service to determine whether any significant damage had occurred to each tree’s roots during Gigaclear’s original excavations.

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Observations OCC Tree Officers carried out inspections of the exposed excavations on this site between 9th and 12th December 2019. Photographs of the exposed trenches can be found in the Appendix on page 3. There was some minor damage to smaller secondary roots present. Some fibrous roots had been removed. The contractors had bridged the larger roots present, i.e. they had dug underneath the roots present, so as to not cause any excessive damage. There was some minor damage to the larger roots that appeared to be from contact with a spade/shovel. There was no damage to any structural roots observed on OCC’s inspections.

Conclusions & Further Action From what OCC Tree Officers observed on their inspections, there was damage to the rooting area within the excavations. This was minor in nature with no significant damage to roots observed during their inspections and there was no evidence of previous removal of large roots within the exposed excavations. The majority of root loss observed by OCC Tree Officers was that of fibrous roots within the first 10-20cm of the excavations, which is not deemed structurally significant and would not affect tree stability. OCC Tree Officers will re-inspect the trees in the summer of 2020 (June -August) to determine whether the excavation works may have had any impact on vigour and/or canopy density. OCC Tree Officers will carry out any works that may be necessary following these inspections. Should the trees be in a reasonable condition with little defects on inspection, OCC will add the trees to their 4 year inspection schedule. Gigaclear have informed OCC, Kingham residents and the Parish Council that they will be giving their contractors additional training specifically related to adherence to National Joint Utilities Group (NJUG) best practice when excavating around the base of trees. OCC’s Tree Service have offered to support Gigaclear with this training, if required and deemed beneficial.

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Appendix Included in the appendix are photographs of the exposed excavations observed by OCC Tree Officers between 9/12/2020 and 12/12/2020. These are associated with the relevant tree ID, as per the map on page 1.

Tree 11SB

Tree 11SC

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Tree 11SD

Tree 11SE

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Tree 11SF

Tree 11SG