ProximiTREE™

Planning & legal

Concern about the location of trees is a major worry to house owners, not only when trees cause damage through subsidence but also because the proximity of trees can jeopardise house purchases, insurance claims, planning applications, mortgage loans and even cause disputes between neighbours. ProximiTREE™ is designed to provide an easy-to-use reference base for all decisions relating to the location of trees and their proximity to either existing or proposed developments. Integration of ProximiTREE™ with Ordnance Survey Master Map® or Bluesky Crown copyright free building mapping provides a direct on-screen representation of how trees spatially relate to the built environment around them.

Insurance risk assessment

Building subsidence is estimated to cost the insurance industry in excess of Ł500 million after each dry year and is usually the second most expensive insured peril after fire. Spatially accurate mapping of trees helps insurance assessors and underwriters to estimate root spread and calculate risk at a local level.

Local Authority Tree Preservation Orders

Trees have an environmental and monetary value, so they need auditing. Local councils use Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) to protect selected trees and woodlands within their urban forest. In the past councils have collected TPO locations via labour intensive and costly site surveys. Using ProximiTREE™ removes the need for hand plotted maps and provides a baseline audit of crown height and canopy width of all trees within a local area. Field officers can use this spatial dataset to add, manage and update information on their tree portfolio from their desktop. ProximiTREE™ is easy to use with a council GIS. With minimum training a member of a Tree Preservation Unit team can quickly query an expansive ProximiTREE™ dataset to provide members of the public or site contractors with rapid and accurate information.

Planning and costing of planting and landscaping schemes

Planting new trees too closely to other established trees can lead to growth being suppressed and ultimately a tree failing and being removed. Using ProximiTREE™ mapping to pinpoint the exact location of existing trees in order to correctly locate new planting saves time and money, ensuring the success of your new planting scheme.

Highways maintenance

Non-maintained trees along our streets and roadways come into conflict with other users of the street e.g. high-sided vehicles. Trees situated along busy streets and roads have increased risk of contact with pedestrians/vehicles. These trees require more extensive protection measures such as tree guards and grilles. Accurate and up-to-date mapping of tree location helps custodians geographically locate trees more likely to cause risk along a road or street, ultimately helping them reduce the peril of damage to citizens, vehicles and trees.

Utilities

Cable avoidance is critical to the maintenance and installation of electricity, water and communications cables both above and below ground. ProximiTREE™ can be used as a data layer within a utility company's GIS & mapping systems to provide vital information about the exact location of trees in relation to cabling and pipework. A phase one desktop study using ProximiTREE™ saves time and cost-intensive field surveys.

Emergency access planning

ProximiTREE™ provides multi-agencies within the Emergency Services with a GIS layer tree mapping solution for disaster and risk planning. A geographically accurate map auditing the location, tree crown height and width of trees assists in vital access and route planning when responding to major disruption caused by severe weather (e.g. flooding, fire, chemical incidents). The tree height information provided in ProximiTREE™ gives easy to read information to assess the suitability of use and access of high-sided emergency vehicles and ladders en route or at the scene of an incident.