Homewood Consulting

In 2002, after more than 15 years as a practising arborist in the field, Ben Kenyon started Homewood Consulting on a simple observation: there was a need for qualified consultants who actually knew trees. Ben is a third generation arborist, now with over 30 years in arboriculture behind the title of Principal Consulting Arborist, and he still hires against that original idea. The consultants who write our reports have climbed, pruned and removed trees before they ever wrote about them.

There are sixteen of us now, and the depth is in the middle of the team as much as the top. Damien Navaud, our General Manager, has 25 years in the industry and 11 with us; Emma Barrett has spent 20 years here; Stuart Tillett brought 21 years with him. Nearly every consultant on staff carries a QTRA registration number and the International Society of Arboriculture's Tree Risk Assessment Qualification, and we have a landscape architect in house as well. Every report is peer reviewed before it leaves the office, and the practice is certified to ISO 9001:2015, ISO 14001:2015 and ISO 45001:2018.

Where an assessment needs a measurement, we have the instruments to take one. Our sonic tomography work uses the Arbotom to detect wood condition and strength loss inside a stem, and PiCUS Tree Motion Sensors record how a tree actually reacts in wind so its stability can be judged on data. We are one of the few practices in Melbourne offering climbing inspections, which is the only way to see some defects at all. On a damage claim, root investigation locates the roots and identifies the tree responsible through cross sectional analysis or DNA laboratory testing.

For planning and development we prepare the full range of arborist reports, along with tree management plans and tree protection plans for trees being kept through a build, and construction supervision so what was specified on paper is what happens on site. When a matter goes further than that, we give expert witness advice and evidence at VCAT and in the Magistrates Court. We also run education and training so your own staff can carry out tree risk assessment properly.

Government and commercial clients come to us for the asset side of it. Tree inventories and open space asset inventories are built on current GIS and GPS mapping, delivered through TreePlotter, a cloud based platform your team uses on any device without needing GPS hardware, on a subscription that suits the size of the holding. Above that sit broad scale tree risk assessments across whole geographies and the strategic documents that follow: urban forest strategies, tree management policies, tree risk strategies, tree planting plans and canopy assessment.

Our head office is at Thomastown in Melbourne's north with a second office in Canberra, and we take work across every state and territory in Australia. Our reports meet the guidelines of Council Arboriculture Victoria and Australian Standard AS 4970 (2025) Protection of trees on development sites, so planning authorities accept them. Ask us and the first thing you get is a fee proposal setting out the cost before a cent is committed; once you confirm in writing we assess the trees, talk any substantial issues through with you, and email the final report. Call 1300 404 558, or Andrew Salo on 0477 116 225 for ACT work.