{"id":58750,"date":"2025-04-28T23:56:13","date_gmt":"2025-04-28T23:56:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/58750\/"},"modified":"2025-04-28T23:56:13","modified_gmt":"2025-04-28T23:56:13","slug":"dad-sues-council-over-fallen-tree-that-destroyed-his-garden-but-loses-and-is-left-with-85k-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/58750\/","title":{"rendered":"Dad sues council over fallen tree that destroyed his garden but loses – and is left with \u00a385k bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

James Williams says his swimming pool, summer house, and trampoline were all wrecked when the huge tree came down\"JamesJames Williams and his wife Leanne at their house(Image: SWNS)<\/p>\n

A dad faces a \u00a385,000 bill after he sued his council – and lost – over a ‘dying’ tree which fell and destroyed his garden. James Williams, 45, says he repeatedly told Bristol City Council<\/a> the 30ft ash tree in the council allotments, next to his garden, needed to be felled.<\/p>\n

But the dad-of-four from Bristol said his pleas fell on deaf ears for 18 months. The massive tree eventually came crashing down – smashing through the family’s newly completed swimming pool, a trampoline, and a summer house.<\/p>\n

The school caretaker claims his family would have been killed if they were inside the pool at the time. His home insurance only covered \u00a33,400 out of the \u00a328,000 of damages to his garden in total, he said, so James decided to pursue legal action.<\/p>\n

The court ultimately decided the council was ‘not liable’ for the damages – because the council worker’s decisions over the tree were ‘competent’ and ‘appropriate’. That has left James and his family more than \u00a385k in debt – \u00a38,000 quoted for garden repairs and \u00a377,000 owed to the council in court costs.<\/p>\n

\"DamageDamage to James’s summer house after a tree fell on his garden<\/p>\n

James said: \u201cWe could have been killed by it if we were outside – I still have nightmares about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May 2019, a representative from Bristol City Council visited the family home after James\u2019 wife, Leanne, 43 reported that large branches from the tree were falling into their garden, he said.<\/p>\n

“They came out, looked at it, and promised to cut the tree down,\u201d James claimed. A month later, Leanne made another complaint after hearing the tree might have had ash dieback disease and that it was ‘dead’.<\/p>\n

The council\u2019s tree officer visited again in June, and in their assessment said there was ‘die present in the upper and middle canopy’. But that there were ‘no other signs of significant disease’ – and ‘no imminent risk of failure to the stem of the tree’.<\/p>\n

\"James'sJames’s trampoline was also wrecked after a tree fell on his garden<\/p>\n

The tree officer suggested the tree should be ‘monolithed’ that September. This involves the removal of all the branches and the reduction of the tree trunk to a height of four metres or less. Despite these assurances, the tree was never felled or monolithed and it became an increasing worry for the Williams family.<\/p>\n

On October 3, 2020, the tree fell. “We were literally going to fill the pool that morning to use with our children – I still have nightmares about the fact that if it had held on for another 12 hours, it may have killed us all as we would have been in the swimming pool,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the fall, Leanne, a stay-at-home mum, said: \u201cIt was like a scene from The Wizard of Oz. The pool and trampoline had been completely crushed and there was smashed glass and wood everywhere from the summer house.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AnAn overhead shot showing where the tree fell into their back garden<\/p>\n

Initially, Bristol City Council sent someone around to remove the tree and admitted liability, James said. However, a few hours later, he alleged that a council member, the same one who assessed the tree months prior, arrived and denied the council\u2019s responsibility, attributing the fall to a storm.<\/p>\n

James was left ‘furious’ and said the garden had been ‘basically ruined’. James lodged a civil claim at Bristol County Court against the council, which went to trial in February this year. James and Leanne claimed that the tree officer sent to the property was \u2018negligent\u2019 in their assessment in that they did not decide to undertake further ‘urgent’ investigations.<\/p>\n

Despite this, the judge was ‘not persuaded’ that the council’s tree officer had ‘missed anything visually’, according to the court’s judgement. The Judge further stated that the decisions made by the officer were within ‘a range of reasonable decisions’ a body of tree officers would regard as appropriate.<\/p>\n

The case was dismissed and the council were deemed not liable. The ordeal has been particularly stressful for James’ wife, Leanne, and her two children from a previous partner, Sienna, 15, Scarlett, 12, and James and Leanne’s children Emmi, four, and baby Maya, one, all of whom live in the same house.<\/p>\n

\"DamageDamage to James’s summer house after a tree fell on his garden<\/p>\n

Leanne had only just given birth days before when the tree came down while it was also during the peak of lockdown. \u201cIt was the worst possible timing to not have a garden,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n

“We were going to fill the pool that day – I got up early in the morning, and when I looked out, it was a shock. The tree had hit the wall of our daughters’ bedrooms, It has all been a nightmare.”<\/p>\n

Four years later, James said: “The garden is still dishevelled and we’ve started clearing away the brambles and debris. But considering we now have to do this all on our own, it’s going to take even more time.”<\/p>\n

Bristol City Council declined to comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James Williams says his swimming pool, summer house, and trampoline were all wrecked when the huge tree came…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58751,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,3893,748,30,393,4884,455,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-58750","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bristol","8":"tag-bristol","9":"tag-bristol-city-council","10":"tag-britain","11":"tag-courts","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-real-life","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114418298741030603","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58750\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}