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About
Seven years on the tools before I wrote a report
Plenty of arborists can quote a standard back to you. Fewer have been up in the tree, or stood next to an excavator when it opened up a root plate, and know what happens on site the day after the report gets written.
How I got here
Seven years of practical arboricultural work, climbing and on the ground, across residential, municipal and development sites. The Diploma came after that, and the consulting after the Diploma.
The order matters. If you have only ever written reports, it is easy to specify protection measures that cannot actually be built, or to miss the thing that goes wrong on the second day of excavation because you have never been there on the second day of excavation.
What I actually do
I work only as a consultant. I do not prune, remove or climb commercially, and there is no works arm behind me. When I tell a council that a tree can be retained, or that it cannot, there is no job sitting behind that conclusion.
My professional indemnity policy covers consulting work and specifically excludes physical tree works. My insurer has drawn the same line around what I do that I have.
How I work
- Fixed fee, quoted in writing before anything starts
- On site within about a week, report about five business days after that
- Reports written to AS 4970:2025 and AS 4373, in current terminology, with the equivalence to older council checklists spelled out
- If council comes back with a question about my report, answering it is part of the job
- If you do not need a report, I will tell you that and there is no fee
Credentials
- Qualification
- AQF Level 5 Diploma of Arboriculture
- Risk
- ISA Tree Risk Assessment Qualification
- Experience
- 7+ years practical arboriculture
- Insurance
- Professional indemnity, $2,000,000. Certificate of currency on request
- ABN
- 42 600 362 402
- Based
- Clifton Hill, working across metropolitan Melbourne
Work
The kind of jobs that come in
Described by the problem rather than the address. I keep client sites private, and I would do the same with yours.
Canopy tree assessment and removal justification
A canopy tree caught by the new provision on a residential site. First job was working out whether it actually met all three parts of the test and whether it sat in the boundary strip. Then building the removal case against the clause's own decision guidelines, which is what council weighs rather than general planning policy.
Retaining wall replacement beside a mature pin oak
A failing retaining wall inside the root zone of a mature pin oak. The wall had to go regardless. The real question was how much root loss the oak could carry and whether the replacement could be built without pushing it past recovery. I quantified the encroachment, specified how the excavation had to be done, and the tree stayed.
Tree roots and sewer infrastructure
A blocked sewer, a tree nearby, and everyone already sure which tree was responsible. The investigation established what the roots were doing and where they had got in. Remove the wrong tree and the owner loses the tree and still has the blockage.
Arboricultural supervision during service installation
Services routed through a protection zone on a live site. I attended the excavation so the calls on encountered roots got made while the trench was open, and each one was photographed and recorded. The permit condition closed out without an argument.
TPMP preparation and construction monitoring
A tree protection management plan written so a council officer could enforce it, then attendance across the build to check that it held up. Most of the value is in the second half. I have seen plenty of good plans on sites where nobody ever came back to look at the fence.
Inspections, risk assessments and audits across eleven councils
Work in Yarra, Darebin, Merri-bek, Banyule, Boroondara, Stonnington, Whitehorse, Monash and Bayside, and further out into Brimbank and Moonee Valley. Each one has its own local law and its own measurement height, and some are a good deal harder to satisfy than others.
Also
I build the software I use
Alongside the consulting I build TIMBR Field, a mobile assessment tool for arboricultural consultancies. Every tree captured the same way, zones calculated to AS 4970:2025 on site, photographs attached to the right tree.
It exists because I got tired of reconstructing site notes at a desk three days later, which is where most of the errors in this industry actually come from. It also means the figures in your report were worked out while I was standing at the tree.
Send me the plans and I will send you a number.
Fixed fee, quoted in writing within one business day. If you are not sure what you need yet, the address and a sentence about what you are trying to do is enough to start with.