tree consultancy services in edinburgh
tree surveys & inspections in Edinburgh
corporateclients
At Thomson Trees, we provide expert tree consultancy services for commercial and domestic clients across Edinburgh and the surrounding areas. Our tailored approach covers tree safety, planning applications, and conservation requirements, ensuring trees are managed responsibly, sustainably, and in line with current legislation.
Health & Safety Tree Survey Inspections
Legal Compliance and Risk Management
Tree owners have a legal duty of care to ensure their trees do not pose a risk to people or property. Regular health and safety inspections are essential for identifying potential hazards and demonstrating compliance with relevant legislation. Our experienced consultants carry out thorough assessments and provide clear, practical recommendations where action is required.
What We Offer:
- On-site tree safety inspections
- Comprehensive reports detailing species, age, condition, and location
- Clear, prioritised recommendations for any necessary remedial work
Recent Projects
We regularly undertake surveys for a wide range of clients, including schools, estates, charities, hospitals, industrial sites, and golf courses. Each survey is tailored to the specific site and its usage, ensuring a practical, proportionate approach to tree risk management.commercial & domesticlarge & small scale tree surveys & inspections
Detailed Visual Assessments
Services Include:
- Negative reporting tree surveys, inspecting all trees but recording only those requiring attention
- Ground-based and aerial inspections for more detailed analysis
- Bat habitat assessments carried out during aerial inspections
- Routine re-inspections to support long-term tree safety
- Use of modern decay detection equipment to assess the structural integrity of high-value amenity trees and support informed decision-making
EFFICIENT & COST-EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS
For larger areas, such as estates, parks, and woodlands, we employ scalable methods to ensure comprehensive coverage:
Services Include:
- We carry out inspections of roadside trees, parks, woodlands and private farms and estates
- Undertake Visual Tree Inspections (VTA) from the ground
- These are often Negative Reporting Tree Surveys where all the trees are inspected, but only trees that pose a hazard or need remedial work will be recorded or tagged. This method of surveying is recognised by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and is often a more cost-effective way of surveying large areas of trees.
- We can undertake aerial inspections where necessary to check the structural integrity of the tree. This is usually as a result of a recommendation from the survey.
- We carry out aerial inspections of trees looking for evidence of roosting bats.
- We carry out routine re-inspections
This approach, endorsed by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), balances safety with cost efficiency
commercial & domestictree surveys for planning applications
Tree surveys are required for trees located within planning application sites, or on adjacent land where trees may influence or be affected by proposed development.
Local planning authorities typically require tree surveys to be prepared by a qualified arboricultural consultant and carried out in accordance with BS5837:2012 – Trees in Relation to Design, Demolition and Construction.
Thomson Trees work closely with architects and developers to undertake on-site tree surveys in support of planning applications. These surveys are followed by a formal report detailing tree quality and categorisation, a tree constraints plan, an impact assessment of the proposed development in relation to retained trees, and a tree protection plan outlining the methods required to safeguard trees throughout the construction process.
Where development works are proposed near retained trees and local authorities require site supervision, we also provide an arboricultural supervision service at key stages of the project. This ensures works are carried out in full compliance with the requirements of BS5837:2012 and provides clear evidence of adherence to approved specifications.