ISS Facility Services Landscaping successfully diffused a serious incident in Maryport’s Town Centre Memorial Gardens, within two hours of receiving the emergency call from Allerdale Borough Council.
Vandals had cut three quarters of the way through a 150 year old, 30 metre high oak tree in the Gardens, compromising the tree’s balance and causing fears that it could at any moment fall onto the main Mealport Road. Police immediately closed off the area due to the potential disruption and damage, together with the serious personal risks inherent to both nearby pedestrians and motorists alike.
Within ten minutes of receiving the crisis call, ISS’s contract supervisor for Allerdale Borough Council was on site assisting police to assess the damage and executing the necessary steps to secure the tree and fell it within the restricted space available and in the only single direction which wouldn’t cause damage to either the Gardens’ boundaries and features, or to members of the public.
ISS has been delivering grounds maintenance solutions to Allerdale Borough Council under a fourteen year Partnership Agreement since 2003, which includes an emergency callout provision.
Specialist support was diverted from ISS’s highly trained arboriculture team and private works team within the vicinity, profiting what was a complicated operation with fully qualified chain-saw operators and a tree surgeon, and demonstrating the true flexibility of the resources within the ISS, Allerdale Borough Council Partnership. Within two hours of the original call the ISS team had guyed the damaged oak to surrounding trees, drove in wedges to precise points and performed precision cutting, ensuring that it was safely dropped to the ground, thus removing the threat. Following the felling, the ISS Team cut the tree into manageable sizes, chipping the branches and smaller limbs on site, to be re-used as mulch, and recycling the main trunk as timber locally.
Phil Jones, Managing Director, ISS Facility Services Landscaping said “The ISS Team carried out an incredible job within an exceptionally short space of time. The safe and precision felling demonstrates the skills within the ISS workforce and the importance of our training programme and commitment to the development of all of our employees. The fact that ISS was able to divert four highly trained members of staff from their routine tasks to this emergency, is testament to our adaptability and to the added value which ISS continues to bring to the Allerdale Partnership, using existing resources at no extra cost to the Client. A key consideration of the Partnership is for the Council to achieve best value and ISS continues to deliver this in Allerdale, together with continuous improvement.”
Police are continuing to hunt for the vandals, who also felled a smaller seven metre high cherry tree in the Memorial Gardens. Allerdale Council has confirmed that the oak was worth around £200,000.
Tel: 0845 057 6600 ext 6213
jacqueline.francis@uk.issworld.com
www.isslandscaping.co.uk