The revised LTOA Risk Limitation Strategy document with the latest version of CAVAT (Capital Asset Valuation of Amenity Trees) will be available on Friday 16 May 2008 for free download along with the Joint Mitigation Protocol which is being launched on this day.

The Joint Mitigation Protocol is an agreed method of subsidence claims management where trees are implicated as being the cause of building movement. It seeks to establish best practice in the processing and investigation of tree root induced building damage, benchmarking time scales for responses and standards of evidence. It has taken three years of negotiation and effort to reach the point of publication. During the course of negotiations the Protocol Group has included and benefited from the input of insurers, local authority tree and risk managers, loss adjusters, engineers and arboricultural consultants. Its principal aims are to speed up the process of claims handling, decision making and mitigation implementation leading to resolution, while at the same time recognising the value of trees in the built environment and providing local authorities with all the investigative evidence required at the beginning of the process. A timely decision may then be made on what course of action is appropriate in respect of the tree.  It represents a considerable achievement, as for the first time, building insurers and their agents have agreed that remedial pruning may be considered as an option rather than always asking for tree removal.

It is hoped that adoption of the Joint Mitigation Protocol by individual local authorities and insurers alike as an agreed and mutually beneficial process will herald a new era of co-operation and partnership working between the two sectors. Trees that should be retained will be retained and claims will be processed quickly so resident’s properties are repaired without unnecessary delay.