A day in the working life of…
Arboricultural Consultant, Sharon Hosegood
FOR AN OCCASIONAL SERIES ‘A DAY IN THE WORKING LIFE OF...’ INDUSTRY PROFESSIONALS, CAROLYNE LOCHER MET UP WITH
ARBORICULTURAL CONSULTANT SHARON HOSEGOOD AT CHELMSFORD TRAIN STATION, A THREE-MINUTE WALK AWAY FROM
THE BUILDING DEVELOPMENT ‘CENTRAL CHELMSFORD PHASE 2’. By 2018, the site will comprise of 9 residential blocks
containing 386 mixed tenure residential units, commercial space, retail units and a 2-level basement car park. Landscaping
will include three trees retained and protected under TPOs throughout demolition and construction that have been
managed by Hosegood Associates for Higgins Construction Plc. Today, Sharon is making a site visit to confirm that soil
enhancers, for use in preparatory works in two days’ time, have been delivered.
Sharon explains, “I came late to this project in October 2015. The demolition contractor
had finished works around these trees, a 150-year-old oak, a mature Norway maple and a
magnolia that is in decline, as specified by a previous arboricultural consultancy. With so few
trees here, we are retaining what we can. The development is now in its construction phase.
My client is the contracted builder and I visit every two weeks. Activities have been going on
around these trees for a year and space around the roots is tight. We are giving them some
TLC; a tree fertiliser; spreading beneficial soil-enhancing biochar around the base, before
bark mulch to improve rooting before the final porous hard surfacing (agreed before I was
involved) goes down in a year’s time.”
Sharon says that she loves building sites. “I learned what was needed by getting my hands
dirty digging among the roots on demolition and construction sites.” This is probably just
as well, Sharon Hosegood Associates (SHA) having managed trees on numerous sites in East
Anglia and London.
An Essex local, Sharon’s love of trees began while carrying out conservation work with The
Conservation Volunteers charity. With a degree in Geography and Landscape Studies
from Southampton University, she joined Maldon District Council (Essex) as a landscape
officer, designing and planting community woodlands and learning about Tree
Preservation Orders (TPOs). In 2000, following maternity leave, she returned to
work, part-time, joining Chelmsford City Council first as tree preservation officer
carrying out their TPO review, before moving to Planning and Development.
Here, she oversaw tree-related planning applications, TPO applications and
launched, with her colleague, a community tree warden scheme.
While at Chelmsford, she studied (privately) for the Level 3 Technician’s
Certificate in Arboriculture. “It was a life-changing experience. I realised how
diverse arboriculture is as a profession and that there was life beyond local
government. Working for the council, I learned how to deal with the general
public, how to work in large organisations and the nuts and bolts of planning.
Those three things have been fundamental to the rest of my working life.“
Joining a private contracting firm part-time in 2005, she first managed the
tree gang, moving into consultancy when legislation BS 5837:2005 (Trees in
Relation to Design, Demolition and Construction: Recommendations) came
into force, supplying arboricultural impact assessments and tree hazard reports
(doing tree plans by hand). She was then made managing director of a subsidiary,
a private arboricultural, environmental and landscape consultancy. Here, she built
up a team of twenty consultants, was regularly invited to speak at industry events,
trained council planning officers (Trevor Roberts Associates), came into contact with a
piece of equipment called the Tree Radar and became a Fellow of the Arboricultural
Association and the Institute of Chartered Foresters, before leaving in October 2014.
Sharon Hosegood with some of the Higgins
Construction team beneath the oak tree. Senior
project manager Steve Read is second from right.
Working from Moulsham Mill in Chelmsford, SHA’s 200+ clients include developers and
architects (some following her from her previous role), local authorities, landowning estate
clients and private domestic customers. Sharon helps local authorities in policy production,
strategy (for two councils) and on an adhoc basis she may interview potential tree officers or
carry out tree surveys. She produces tree surveys and reports for private domestic clients and
also acts as an expert witness (since 2013) for the courts.
Sharon says, ”At any one time, we have ten to fifteen projects of different sizes and at various
stages on the go. Charging a fixed fee for each stage of any project, a customer always knows
where they are. If there is too much work, I use independent associates made up of people I
have grown to trust and respect over my 20 years in the business.”
Half of Sharon’s working life is spent in this office. When not at her desk, she sits on the office
beanbag, where she strategises, reads (Continued Professional Development) and rests her
back. She holds up a new piece of kit, a £12 tool belt containing a logger’s tape. “I spend 50%
of my time out on site. Both are incredibly useful when surveying or supervising.”
Planning accounts for 70% of SHA’s workload. A good example is a project in Caledonian
Road, Islington. Client, Telford Homes Plc, followed Sharon from her previous position and
the project has been running for three years. “One of the main gripes of an arboricultural
consultant is that we are instructed way too late. A development’s layout has already been
22
Summer 2016
A final check on the ground conditions beneath
trees and we return to the Portakabin to change
back into civilian clothing.
determined and the application is already with the council. We get asked for a tree report
that says all will be okay. Often it is not. Had we been involved earlier, trees could have been
saved with sensitive design solutions.”
Happily, SHA was instructed by Telford Homes before they bought the Caledonian Road site. “We
walked it with the borough’s tree officer, asking what could be done. It was a 2 hectare slice of
contaminated wasteland spanning a steep slope and covered in Japanese knotweed, with housing
on the south side, a railway line on the north side, and HS2 running underneath. An initial walkover
saves time and money. We work out which trees (healthy with big canopies) to keep, while being
realistic about which with lower value (smaller, or with structural faults) to remove.”
The Caledonian Road walkover revealed two preserved small sycamore woodlands. SHA then
carried out a survey. “I create a BS 5837 tree survey and each tree is plotted. We look at size,
condition, any notable features and the role it plays in the landscape. A baseline tree table
and a plan of the site contain the tree’s unique reference number, location, crown spread and
the root protection area.
“The tree survey report contains a plan, containing colour-coded ‘good, bad and ugly’ trees,
showing a client what can be done with the land. I use a simplified system when speaking
with non-industry professionals.”
Telford Homes requested an arboricultural impact assessment for use in their planning
application. Sharon saw the application through the planning process, negotiating with the
council, carrying out toolbox talks and borehole soil testing investigations adjacent to tree
roots to determine what foundations could be used.
The building site with the three trees in
Sharon’s care in the distance. On a building
site, safety is paramount. Signing in, I don a
high-vis jacket and steel toe-capped boots one
size too large and stumble after Sharon and
senior project manager Steve Read across the
multi-storey car park.
With the application granted, Sharon provided arboricultural method statements for each
phase of the development to minimise the impact on retained trees throughout the Japanese
knotweed removal, throughout demolition, for arboriculture removals and on through
construction. “Each document states how works will proceed and when. It states what is
staying, what is going and how the trees will be protected. We supervise each phase.”
Yesterday’s site supervision inspection for a second Higgins Construction site, also in Islington,
was to check that recommended tree protection measures had been carried out. “I was
checking that where they have demolished a wall, the ground is protected with fresh soil and
a double layer of hessian, that the fencing was braced and carried warning signs. They had
done everything.”
At Caledonian Road, the knotweed has gone. Fences protecting the woodlands have gone
up. Construction is beginning. “In April, we planted twenty trees (eight oak, field maple,
hornbeam and hazel) with the local school, to keep the treescape growing, to build resilience
and diversity into the stock (against host-specific diseases), to build visual interest and to
attract additional wildlife.
“Community engagement, especially involving schoolchildren, can make
them feel part of where they live. Caledonian Road makes me really happy,
I have been involved with the development for so long. We are providing
ongoing site supervision and community involvement which will continue for
up to fifteen years beyond completion, with further plantings, the creation
of nature areas, an educational resource, within the two woodlands.”
Sharon and Higgins Construction’s Steve
Read under the Norway maple tree. Steve
confirms that the biochar, bark mulch and
Cordex have been delivered.
Sharon, who obviously loves trees, says that arboriculture is really about people
– from a wealthy client or a child living in a deprived area, to engaging with other
professionals and members of the public. She hopes to shift the general perception
that an arboricultural consultant is a necessary evil within the planning process, to
that of an arboricultural consultant being a creator of tomorrow’s landscapes. She
encourages developers to be realistic about tree retention and to create meaningful
new planting schemes. Encouraging uniqueness in a client’s tree design and encouraging
community involvement has led to winning awards.
Some of SHA’s work remains confidential, being in the pre-planning phase or carried out for
anonymous clients. Where permissible, the company produces short films in-house to run
alongside particular projects. Sharon says, ‘’If there are additional ways to communicate what
we are doing, to make it accessible and understood by other professionals and the public, we
will do it.”
Sharon is (possibly) best known outside the industry for her television appearances with the
Tree Radar (see essentialARB Issue 56 Spring). It is a piece of equipment used to detect live
roots (containing water and metals) as thick as a thumb and accounts for just 5% of SHA’s
workload. Sharon scanned the 440-year-old Burghley oak, producing a 3D scan for ‘Britain
Beneath Our Feet’ (BBC, 2015). Scan results for ‘Rip Off Britain’ (2015), where an aggrieved
householder upset by the (assumed) effect that council-owned trees were having on his
boundary wall, proved inconclusive as to whether the roots were causing damage or the
foundations were badly built.
Subcontracting for Lloyd Bore Landscape, Arboriculture and Ecology Ltd, Sharon uses
the Tree Radar approximately every two months, generally for research (potential building
developments) or where tree safety could be a problem. “Last night, I was instructed to survey
a London plane at a London school. The tree is growing a metre away from a basement wall
that they wish to develop. I will scan the basement floor and the walls (vertically) and around
Summer 2016
23
the outside of the tree. This will inform my client whether development is possible or not.
Using the Tree Radar satisfies a scientific and intellectual need. I am grateful that I can have
this diversity in my life.”
Although this ground-penetrating radar equipment produces scans of the ground (green
indicating reasonable root density, orange indicating lower to very low root density), it does
have its limitations. Current research is underway to improve the readings of root thickness.
In August, Sharon will travel with Ian Lee (Lloyd Bore) to Holland to work with Terra Nostra, to
carry out further research on tree roots growing in a variety of different soils. “We are looking
to see if the Tree Radar can do more than solely measure the depth and extent of a tree’s
roots. We will do this by comparing tree roots [exposed after the scan] with the amplitude of
the waveform [different sized curves on a scan] produced by the Tree Radar, to see if we can
correlate the thickness of individual roots from the results.” They will write a paper and share
with the arboricultural community.
Giving SHA two years to become established as an independent arboricultural consultancy,
the hope is that within three years they will have a small expert team of individuals, at different
levels in their career, carrying out tree work that is useful and creative. Sharon says, “I like inhouse staff, developing and thrashing out ideas, pushing arboriculture forward.”
One of three trees on the Higgins Construction site ‘Central
Chelmsford Phase 2’ in Chelmsford town centre.
Sharon Hosegood makes use of
the office beanbag.
As an ICF Trustee and Assessor (Chartered Status applications), Sharon will help organise this
year’s National Study Tour (October), ‘Streets of London: Resilience in the Landscape and for
People’. She spreads the word about arboriculture by talking at land-based colleges about the
industry. “Too few graduates think about arboriculture as a career because they do not know
about it. At parties, if I say what I do, people think I look at trees all day. This work is incredibly
technical, scientific and high-pressured. You need to be able to think on your feet, solve
problems at speed, write, speak [so that you are understood] and produce clear plans.”
If more television work were offered, would she turn it down? Sharon thinks carefully before
responding. “I have not sought out these opportunities. They were offered and I accepted.
Being on television helps in two ways. It helps to reach a wider public audience and it helps
the audience understand what arboriculture is about. We are humble as an industry. We need
to talk about what we do, so that people come into it and enjoy a rewarding career. Raising
the profile of the industry outside of the arboricultural industry is good for us and good for
trees.”
sharonhosegoodassociates.co.uk
www.higginsconstruction.co.uk/current-projects/current/central-chelmsford-phase-2