Stourbridge: Vegetation management
Arb Access was tasked to remove vegetation along approximately 400m of a sandstone rock outcrop prior to geotechnical works. The vegetation ranged from small self-seeded willows, birches and ash trees through to mature oak trees that were considered a risk to the site below due to their undermined roots and overall condition.
Action Taken
Trees were felled and dismantled using Industrial Rope Access techniques and traditional tree climbing methods.
Our team faced the challenge of working in a live building site whilst allowing the building works to continue. In order to co-ordinate this safely, regular meetings and communication with the site representatives was important, as well as a good degree of flexibility from Arb Access.
Additional challenges on the site included ponding of water and boggy conditions in some areas beneath the cliff, the team used a ‘speedline’ system to send trees and timber from the top of the cliff over the flooded areas. This negated a considerable amount of manual handling and working in water hazards which would be time consuming and increased the risks to our team.
In addition to clearing the vegetation timber was also removed from the site.
Once felled, the stumps from trees were taken down (cut lower) in order to ease the laying of geotechnical mesh over them and to allow the seams of the mesh to be fixed together more easily. Mature tree stumps were prioritised for eco plugging* and 1,000 eco plugs were installed over this site to inhibit re-growth.
Despite the challenges on this site the project was a success and our client was pleased with the result.
*Eco plugs – A herbicide pellet that is delivered via a plastic pellet (plug) that can be applied at any time of year, they are deemed practically zero risk to the operator, surrounding habitat and vegetation.
