McArdle Arboricultural Consultancy

James McArdle spent part of his working life at Hornsby Council as an Environmental Officer, and that grounding in how a council actually reads a tree application sits behind every report that leaves this office. He is Senior Consulting Arborist and Managing Director of McArdle Arboricultural Consultancy, holds a Bachelor Degree in Education and Science plus further study in horticulture and arboriculture, and carries AQF Level 5 qualification status, which is the level councils ask for. He started out in the family business, and the McArdle name has been attached to tree work since 1956.

We specialise in independent AQF Level 5 arborist reports to accompany tree applications to council, and James has more than 30 years behind him preparing them for residential and commercial clients. Inspection and analysis are carried out to the Australian Standards, AS 4970 (2009) for the protection of trees on development sites and AS 4373 (2007) for the pruning of amenity trees. The assessment work uses Visual Tree Assessment, the method built on tree biology, physiology and structure that picks up the visible signs of poor health and potential hazard, and where a tree is genuinely suspect we go up into the canopy, recording video and stills with a long arm inspection camera to find the structural defects you cannot see from the lawn.

Homeowners come to us when a tree is caught by a council Tree Preservation Order and written consent is needed before anything can be pruned or removed. That is where a hazard report, advice on a significant tree, or a pest and tree management plan does the work of getting an application over the line. On the commercial side we consult to architects, surveyors and developers on arboricultural impact assessments and method statements, so building envelopes and retained trees can co-exist and a site can still be developed as intended.

The rest of what we do sits around those reports: tree surveys, tree health and condition reports, tree risk assessment and tree management reports, preliminary tree plans, resistograph testing where decay needs measuring rather than guessing at, arborist site supervision and certification during construction, and school tree risk assessments. We are members of the Tree Contractors Association of Australia and carry $20 million public liability and $5 million professional indemnity cover.

We work from Dural in Sydney's north west and from Gosford on the Central Coast, which takes in the Hornsby and Hills districts, the northern suburbs around Normanhurst, Eastwood and Gladesville, and the coast north of the river. Send us the tree, the address and what the council has asked you for, and we will tell you what sort of report you need and how soon we can get out to look at it.