Law firm warns farmers to check the safety of their trees

A solicitor who specialises in agricultural law is warning landowners to check the safety of trees on their land or they could end up in court.

Richard Williams, an expert in agricultural and rural land law at Walker Smith Way, says landowners should check trees that border public highways after recent gales.The warning follows a recent court case in which a motorcyclist won damages in the High Court after he was injured when he crashed into a tree that had fallen from land belonging to Viscount and Viscountess Asquith.

“It will come as a shock to many landowners just how far the courts expect them to go to ensure that their trees do not cause a nuisance to the users of the public highway,” said Mr Williams.

“In this case, at first glance, the landowners would have appeared to have taken reasonable steps to prevent this accident occurring – they employed an independent forestry expert to keep an eye on all of their trees which bordered the highway.

“This expert would carry out drive by inspections and if he saw an obvious problem or danger with a particular tree, he would stop and carry out a closer inspection and would, if necessary take action to make the tree safe.

“It turned out that the tree was a multi-stemmed ash, which was outwardly healthy but suffering from fungal decay,” said Mr Williams.

“The independent forester employed by the landowners agreed that a better-qualified inspector should have inspected the tree more closely as a multi-stemmed ash did pose a risk which would require a closer look.”

The court decided that an expert would have realised that the tree was suffering from fungal decay – had he been asked to inspect the tree – and the landowners had failed in their duty of care to the motorcyclist by not instructing a specialist.

“It should also be remembered that ‘public highway’ not only means roads but also public rights of way,” added Mr Williams.