Essential for successful planning applications
The Tree Constraint Plan (TCP) is essential for a successful planning application as it provides the baseline information about the constraints and opportunities posed by your trees. A clear and accurate Tree Constraints Plan (TCP) helps minimise conflicts and guides the design of your development ensuring buildings and trees co-exist sustainably.
This plan is designed to be precise and coordinated with a Topographical Survey to ensure trees are positioned with accuracy, setting the stage for effective tree management and planning applications.
At Arb Innovators, we harness the power of drones, photogrammetry, AI, and 3D modelling to elevate our Tree Constraints Plans.. These technologies allow you, your architect or project team to visualise and interpret the constraints clearly and easily, in three dimensions.
What is a Tree Constraints Plan?
A Tree Constraint Plan is more than just a plan, it's a comprehensive guide to the arboricultural features on your property or Site and the foundation for future tree preservation, design and construction planning. Essential for planning and development projects, the Tree Constraints Plan is pivotal in ensuring compliance with BS5837:2012 and local planning validation requirements.
Created with the precision of GIS and AutoCAD, each Tree Constraints Plan details the accurate position, species, and dimensions of every tree, groups of trees, woodlands and hedges. These features are drawn with crown spreads measured at the four cardinal compass points (north, east, south, west) to create a realistic intimation of their shape, and a root protection area (RPA) to indicate both the above and below ground constraints the trees pose. The crowns are coloured in accordance with the categorisations of tree quality (BS5837:2012) for easy interpretation.
What is a Root Protection Area (RPA)?
It is understandable that many people are unaware of what an RPA is, but it is especially important for all Homeowners, Developers and Landowners. The term "Root Protection Area" (RPA) holds significant weight in BS5837. Understanding and respecting RPAs is the cornerstone to ensuring successful and environmentally conscious development projects.
An RPA is essentially a designated zone established to safeguard the roots and, by extension, the overall health and stability of the tree. Ultimately, a root protection area is the minimum area around the bottom of a tree that would support and provide enough volume for the trees rooting system to grow successfully. This area is recognised for its critical role in maintaining a tree's unrestricted access to water, nutrients, and oxygen, all vital for its growth and survival.
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Our innovative use of technology, from drone surveys to AI-driven analysis, allows us to accurately identify and map RPAs, ensuring that your development plans are informed, compliant, and environmentally responsible.
For trees with a single stem, the root protection area is calculated by multiplying the tree’s diameter (in meters) at 1.5m above ground level by 12. This is then followed by a circle being drawn around the centre of the tree with a maximum of 15m radius.
Balance tree constraints & construction
The Tree Constraints Plan is a tool that can be used to aid in development of a site plan that maximises the available space whilst taking into account the constraints caused by trees. Ready to book a BS5837:2012 Tree Survey and receive your Tree Constraints Plan, let us help you harness the full potential of your property with unparalleled precision and expertise.
Innovative Survey Technology: Drones, AI, and 3D Mapping
At Arb Innovators, we leverage drones, photogrammetry, and artificial intelligence automation, with accuracy, to conduct thorough tree surveys. This allows us to provide detailed Tree Constraints Plans (TCP) to better-inform the constraints to your proposed development.
Providing innovative Tree Constraints Plans
At Arb Innovators, we harness the power of drones, photogrammetry, AI, and 3D modelling to elevate our Tree Constraint Plans above conventional methods. These technologies allow for quicker data collection, higher accuracy, and the ability to visualise future impacts in three dimensions.
Explore how our commitment to technology has revolutionised project planning for numerous clients, delivering results that traditional surveys simply cannot match.
UNLOCKING INFORMATION INSTANTLY
Our Tree Constraints Plans frequently include a unique QR code which takes you to a series of 360-degree annotated photographs to show your site in context, 3D models of specific tree features or important trees such as ancient and veteran trees, or existing site constraints that may affect root growth and spread.
Do you need a Topographical Survey?
Consider whether you intend to build, renovate, or redesign your property or an area of land in Warwickshire. If so, a topographical survey can provide you with the accuracy you need to understand where existing natural and man-made features are. The insights from a topographical survey guide you and your project, ensuring every feature and contour is considered.
Our experienced partners conduct Topographical Surveys across Warwickshire and produce maps in-house to the scale and format requested by our clients.
Outputs that can be supplied include 2D and 3D Plan Drawings, Site Sections, volumes, Autodesk Civil 3D surfaces, MX GENIO and LandXML outputs, 3D Modelling and Building Information Modelling (BIM).
How we ensure accuracy with our Tree Constraints Plans
RTK GNSS RECEIVERS
We utilise the Emlid RS3, an industry-leading RTK GNSS receiver with tilt compensation to ensure centimetre-accurate precision when recording trees during a Tree Survey.
HOW DRONES HELP US
We used our drones during our BS5837 Tree Survey capture high-resolution imagery which we orthorectify for use in GIS as base maps. Typically, aerial satellite imagery has a low-resolution and in the absence of a Topographical Survey, it can be difficult to accurately interpret the positions of trees.
Drone imagery has an amazing amount of information at a much higher resolution, but cannot be used in a GIS until it has been processed such that all pixels are in an accurate (x,y) positions.
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We use Reality Capture to create our ortho-projections for our Tree Constraints Plans. As a biproduct, we can also generate a Digital Surface Model (DSM) which represents the elevation of the tallest surfaces at that point - great for tree shade analysis.
Bringing important features to life
Aerial drone photogrammetry surveys are conducted by taking a series of overlapping aerial photographs from various angles. From the overlapping pictures, a 3D model or map of the surveyed region is created.
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We have a range of drones in our toolbox, from sub-250g drones which give us the advantage of reducing separation distances and the ability to fly in congested areas, to larger drones with cameras capable of recording up to 8k video resolution.
PHOTOGRAMMETRY IN ACTION
We used our DJI Mini 3 Pro and filmed 4k, 60fps video to capture an immersive 360 perspective of this oak during a BS5837 Tree Survey.
By employing cutting-edge 3D photogrammetry scanning techniques, we are able to incorporate this model into our Tree Constraints Plan instead of a generic 2D plans and better showcase an immersive, visual representation of any important trees.
These high-definition 3D scans, combined with detailed photographs and, where required, immersive videos, help us to visually represent our survey findings in a new way.