Arbor Express VIC

Thirty two years of arboriculture sit behind Arbor Express VIC. Robert de Jong started Discount Tree Services in Canberra in 1993 and built it into the largest arborist firm in that city before selling up in 2011, then founded this practice with his son Alex. The two of them still write reports themselves. What we run in Victoria is a consulting arboricultural practice, so what you get from us is a document a planner, a builder or a council can act on.

Clause 52.37 is where a lot of Victorian projects come unstuck. It catches any tree over 5 metres tall, over 4 metres across the canopy, or more than half a metre around the trunk measured 1.4 metres off the ground, and the permit will not move without a Level 5 arborist report behind it. Ours records the species, the measurements, the health and the structural condition of every tree in question, then works out the Tree Protection Zone and the Structural Root Zone for each one against AS 4970 and the Victorian Planning Provisions. From there we set out the development impact and say plainly which trees can be retained and which cannot. That document is what your application gets argued on, so we would rather it be right the first time than have you back at council twice.

All 31 municipalities of Greater Melbourne are on our books, from Carlton, East Melbourne and South Yarra through Camberwell, Kew, Canterbury and Carnegie, west to Footscray, Melton and Werribee, and south east to Dandenong, Narre Warren, Cranbourne and Pakenham. Regional Victoria is covered as well, taking in Geelong, Ballarat, Bendigo, the Mornington Peninsula, Warrnambool, Albury and Wodonga. LendLease, Metricon, Stockland, Endeavour Energy, Richard Crookes Construction and the Department of Health have all had us on projects, and so have homeowners with one tree and a townhouse plan.

Once a permit comes back conditional the paperwork changes. Tree management plans and tree protection plans set out what stays and how it survives the build, and as your project arborist we supervise the work any time something happens inside a tree protection zone. Where roots are the question, tree root investigation and mapping establishes where they actually run before a slab or a trench is committed to. On the safety side we carry out tree risk assessment using QTRA, and tree structural testing puts figures on whether a trunk will hold. Schools and high traffic areas have their own assessment stream. Our two ecologists, both science graduates, take ecological consulting past the single tree to habitat and vegetation, and an on-site tree consultation handles the one-off question.

The team runs from a Certificate III climbing arborist through Diploma of Arboriculture consultants at Level 5 up to Walter Chan, who holds a Master of Science in Arboriculture and Urban Forestry at Level 9. After the 2019 and 2020 bushfires, which devastated Robert's grandmother's holiday home at Rosedale, we ran a recovery program giving free arborist reports to people facing thousands of damaged trees. Turnaround is the thing we most want to be judged on: a free quote comes back within 24 hours, an on-site consultation costs you nothing, and a fast tracked development report is in your hands within five days anywhere in Victoria. Ring 0493 993 187 and tell us what is on the block and when you need it by.