About Urban Tree Management

Development work is the core of the practice. We deliver the full arboricultural planning package — BS5837 surveys, tree constraints plans, impact assessments, tree protection plans, method statements and site supervision — for schemes ranging from single householder extensions to major multi-phase development.



Project experience includes university and student-village development alongside national construction firms, large residential and commercial schemes, healthcare and care home development, civic and crematorium sites, canal and infrastructure works, and NHBC Chapter 4.2 foundation design support for housebuilders. We work directly for developers and land agents, and as arboricultural consultant to architects, planning consultants and ecological practices.

Early involvement is where the value sits. Constraints established before a layout is fixed get designed around; constraints discovered after submission get designed out of, expensively. We provide feasibility appraisals at acquisition stage, CAD-ready output your design team can work directly from, and the full submission package when a scheme proceeds.

A significant proportion of our work is recurring. Schools, academy trusts, healthcare providers, estates and commercial portfolios keep their tree stock on managed inspection cycles renewing every twelve to twenty-four months, and some of those relationships have run for years across multiple sites.

A client who commissions a survey once is buying a document. A client who keeps you on cycle for a decade is telling you the document was worth having — that the recommendations were proportionate and the budget was respected.

It produces better work as well. By the third or fourth inspection of a site we know its history: which trees were flagged and why, what has changed, what was acted on. Change gets measured rather than guessed at.

Alongside the surveys we write the tree risk management policy that sits above them — inspection regimes, risk zoning, roles and responsibilities — aligned to HSE guidance and the National Tree Safety Group's Common Sense Risk Management of Trees. For a trust managing trees across many sites, that turns a scatter of separate surveys into an auditable safety management system.

Urban Tree Management is led by Carl Riva, working alongside experienced associate consultants where a project calls for additional capability or capacity. Between them the team holds over 30 years of industry experience and professional membership of the Arboricultural Association.