Deadwooding: the safety-and-health job on established Thanet trees.

Why deadwood matters more here

Two Thanet-specific pressures:

• Ash dieback: Chalara fraxinea has spread through East Kent since 2012. Advanced-stage trees produce heavy deadwood that fails unpredictably. The Health & Safety Executive and the Arboricultural Association both classify heavily-infected ash within falling distance of a target (people, cars, buildings) as high-priority. If you have ash on your Thanet plot, an annual deadwood check is basic prudence.
• Coastal gales: Thanet routinely takes north-easterly gusts over 50 knots in autumn/winter. Deadwood that would sit quietly on an inland tree for years fails in the first big blow. The cliff-top belt from Kingsgate through Broadstairs to Ramsgate is particularly exposed.

What deadwooding involves

A climber goes through the canopy branch by branch, removing:

• Dead branches over 25mm diameter (smaller than that they fall on their own without causing damage)
• Dying branches (brittle, no bark cambium) that will be dead next season
• Broken or hanging branches (widow-makers)
• Diseased material where the disease , but only where removing it stops the spread; some diseases you don't prune out

Cuts go back to healthy wood, at the branch collar, so the tree can seal them cleanly. Arisings chipped and cleared same day.

Species notes for Thanet

• Ash: dieback check first, always. If dieback is advanced (>50% crown loss), the tree may be a fell rather than a deadwood. Assessed at quote stage.
• Sycamore, lime, London plane: routine annual deadwooding cycle. Common on the Ramsgate, Broadstairs and central Margate avenues.
• Holm oak: slow to shed deadwood naturally; benefits from an active deadwood cycle every 3-4 years.
• Fruit trees: deadwooding is often the only tree work an old apple or pear needs. Winter for apple/pear; summer only for plum and cherry.
• Beech, hornbeam: shed deadwood readily on their own; less annual work needed.

Pricing

Deadwooding is the fastest of the tree-services jobs on a same-size specimen. Typical Thanet range: £180 – £550 per mature tree. Add for difficult access, extra height, or multiple trees on one visit. Cross-town scheduling reduces the mobilisation cost.

Not always a permit job

Removing genuinely dead wood from a CA or TPO tree is normally exempt from the notice requirement: you don't need s.211 or a TPO application to take off dead branches. But the definition of "dead" is strict. I check first and, where any doubt exists, file the notice on your behalf.