Tree and Ivy Gone!

May 2013 I placed my shed about 750mm away from a dog leg wall which had two fractures in it.  Being a Structural Engineer I could see that the return wall to the adjacent plot was leaning such that its centre of gravity was way outside the middle third of its width and was basically an accident waiting to happen so I reported it to the Local Authority. 

Their solution was initially to strap the leaning section back to the broken section behind the shed that was not leaning. So I measured and monitored as this form of repair only becomes effective when the wall wants to continue moving and tension goes into the straps. 

October 2014 I showed the Neighbourhood Manager the amount of movement and informed him of my worries and that I have recorded and sent in proof that the wall had continued to rotate and had in fact stated to drag the stabilising wall along its DPC and that the other crack behind the shed was opening up. There being no Money I was informed that he with rather kick myself and the plot holder of Plot 2 off the plots as it was cheaper than a repair. 

I pointed out that he would still have to fence off the area where the wall could collapse and that if he did that and my neighbour and his mum could not sit under the shade of the tree and in the path of a falling 

A Jump forward to Thursday and I was at a point where the tree and ivy had grown to cover the shed and with the aid of timbers from my timber and storage rack and polycarbonate sheeting I had an ivy and tree covered storage area behind and beside the shed. Yes I needed to cut it back and off the shed so that I can re roof the shed as the correx has degraded and water is now penetrating the shed and saturating the roof sheeting material.

As I was about the leave a workmans head popped up over the wall and he started trimming back and dragging the branches over the wall into the building site, I said to him don't go mad and the tree that has damaged the wall is now in fact the only thing holding the wall back from falling over as the branches and Ivy had grown over the top of the wall. 

It appears he had his instruction and he has removed the tree and has managed to pull as much as possible over the wall until, you guessed it the wall with the ladder on it started to move and they found the wall was unstable!  

So this was my view in the afternoon of Thursday 6th February when I returned to see how much trimming they had actually done.  

I started to clear the debris of the supporting structure that went between the storage rack and the shed roof that had collapsed during the work.