ArbPro Tree Specialists

Kayne Smith started ArbPro in Coffs Harbour in 2007 and still owns and directs it. He is an AQF5 qualified arborist and holds International Society of Arboriculture certification, which has to be requalified every five years, and his Certificate IV as a Qualified Trainer and Assessor means the safety training our crew gets on a worksite comes from him. The rest of the team are AQF3 and AQF5 arborists, and that is the standard we hold the work to.

Our patch runs the length of this coast, from Port Macquarie in the south through Coffs Harbour to the upper Clarence, a stretch we came to know closely through the Pacific Highway upgrade. Private homeowners are part of that work and so are Forestry NSW, Fulton Hogan, Lendlease, the NSW Department of Education and Transport NSW, along with councils, schools and service providers.

What we own decides what we can take on. Our chippers handle 21 inch diameter and come in both four wheel drive and two wheel drive, and our stump grinders run from a machine small enough to fit through a 900mm gateway up to larger units on self laying tracks, which is the difference between reaching a stump in a courtyard and telling you it cannot be done. We operate a Volvo FL250 crane truck with a Hiab Jonsered log lift alongside a conventional crane truck, a Bobcat T90 and a Terex PT-100G that take a forest mulcher and a range of other attachments, and an all terrain EWP with a 23 metre working height and a 200kg limit, running an electric motor on lithium batteries.

The consulting side is all produced in house. Arborist reports, tree risk assessments, tree protection plans, tree management plans and vegetation removal plans are the documents a development application or a council clearing approval usually turns on, and our pest and disease identification and treatment looks after the trees that are struggling rather than dangerous. Some of what we offer is uncommon in a regional business: cabling and bracing can hold a valued tree together, root barriers are supplied and installed to keep roots off pipes and paving, our saw milling turns a felled trunk back into usable timber, and we supply and install fauna nest boxes so the possums and parrots that lose a hollow have somewhere to move into.

The everyday work is still tree removal, tree pruning and maintenance, stump grinding, wood chipping, land clearing and tree planting. Our office runs 8:30am to 5:00pm Monday to Friday and closes on public holidays, but we are open 24/7 for emergency works, because a tree that comes down at midnight is not a Monday problem. Ring Kristin on 0400 822 848 or email [email protected].