Access 2 Trees

Challenge: 

Access 2 Trees is an arborculture specialist in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. The company was commissioned to cut back medium-sized trees and large bushes along a boundary between a school and care home. To carry out the work, Access 2 Trees needed to work from the care home side of the boundary. This involved gaining access to a narrow strip of land, with the two-storey care home building on one side, and the boundary on the other. At one point, the strip was no more than 1.2 metres wide. Part of this land was rough terrain due to the construction of an extension to the care home, and part was a paved patio area.

Solution: 

Access 2 Trees used its Hinowa Lightlift 20.10 Performance IIIS tracked spider boom to carry out the work. It was able to track the access platform along the strip of land to a point where it could be set up to work at height. As the tracked boom lift is just 0.79m wide, it could be pass through the 1.2m-wide pinch point, with its basket removed. Wooden boards were laid to provide additional support over the soft and uneven soil where building work was being carried out. The same boards were also used to reduce the platform’s point load on the paved patio. Once set up, the Access 2 Trees operatives could quickly reach all areas long the section of boundary being worked on. They were aided by the Hinowa LL 20.10’s exceptional outreach which meant the platform did not have to be repositioned during the work.

Outcomes: 

The Hinowa LL 20.10 allowed Access 2 Trees to complete the pruning of the a 30m section of trees and shrubs along the property boundary in less than one day and from just two positions. The low ground pressure of the machine, both when tracking and when set up for working at height, gave the care home owner and the construction contractor assurance that the operation would not damage to their assets. The productivity achieved using the Hinowa boom lift also ensured the work was carried out as quickly and as safely as possible, with minimal disruption to other activity on the site.

It is hard to see how this pruning project could have been carried out with anything other than a boom lift with the Hinowa’s exceptional performance. Carrying out the work with towers or ladders over the uneven ground would have been very time-consuming, costly and potentially unsafe.

Using our Hinowa spider boom for this work, operating on third party land, ensures the tree surgery is carried out quickly with least disruption, which is very good for maintaining client-neighbour relations and controlling costs.

We looked at a lot of powered access platforms before selecting the Hinowa. We found none that had Hinowa’s combination of build quality, reliability and working at height performance. It’s an ideal aerial platform for tree surgery and APS’s customer service is also exceptional.

- James Plaskett, Owner, Access 2 Trees