EIR - The impacts of ash dieback

Request for Information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000/Environmental Information Regulations 2004

Dear Freedom of Information Officer

I am a researcher at Oxford University investigating the impacts of ash dieback (an invasive disease of ash trees) across the UK. I am currently looking into the financial cost of the outbreak and am interested in whether your council has collected any data that might be of use to my investigation. I would be very grateful if you could tell me the following:

1. How many roadside ash trees are there within your council boundary? If a total number is not known, have any surveys of numbers of roadside ash been carried out within your boundary and if so, what were the results? (For clarity, by “roadside ash” I am referring to ash trees (any Fraxinus species) that are close enough to a road that they could potentially fall onto or drop debris onto the road.)

2. How many urban ash trees are there within your boundary, and what is the breakdown of these between public and private property? If this is not known, how many trees of any species are there within your boundary?

3. If known, what is the total area of parks, gardens, greens and common land within your boundary?

4. What was the total amount of money spent by your council on insuring trees in the last financial year (2016-17)? And what was the total amount spent on public liability insurance overall?

Finally, I anticipate that the results of this work may be of interest to local authorities and therefore I would like to provide the opportunity for interested parties to see a pre-publication draft, when it is complete, for information or comments. If anyone in your council (for instance, the Tree Officer) would like to be contacted about this, I would be grateful if you could put me in touch.

Many thanks for your time, and I look forward to hearing back from you.

Best wishes