MS Consulting Arborist

MS Consulting Arborist is the practice of Michael Shaw, a consulting arborist providing arborist reports and tree management advice across the New South Wales Central Coast and beyond. This is a consultancy rather than a cutting crew, and that distinction matters: the job is to assess a tree objectively and put the findings in writing, whether that supports keeping the tree, managing it, or removing it. The service is described as friendly, professional and efficient, and in practice that means a clear report, delivered when it was promised, that a council or a certifier will accept.

Michael holds an AQF Level 5 Diploma of Horticulture (Arboriculture), completed in 2009, and is NSW DET approved, a licensed QTRA (Quantified Tree Risk Assessment) assessor and a qualified and licensed VALID tree risk assessor. He is fully insured. Those credentials are what separate a report that stands up from one that gets knocked back, because AQF Level 5 is the standard most NSW councils require before they will take an arboricultural assessment seriously.

The core work is arborist reports, including AQF Level 5 certified reports and arboricultural impact assessment reports to accompany a development application, whether it is lodged with council or privately certified. For clients still at the drawing stage, preliminary arborist reports and pre-development assessments guide the design before money is committed, which is by far the cheapest point at which to find out that a tree on the boundary is going to constrain the footprint.

Tree risk assessments put a defensible number on the hazard a tree actually presents, using the QTRA and VALID methodologies rather than a gut feeling, which is what a property owner, a strata committee or an insurer needs when a decision has to be justified. Tree management plans take the longer view for sites with trees worth retaining, and on site verbal consultation and general tree management advice are available where a full written report would be more than the situation calls for.

MS Consulting Arborist services the Central Coast, including Gosford, Woy Woy and Umina, along with Sydney, North Sydney, the Lower North Shore, North Western Sydney, Hornsby, Newcastle and the Hunter, and the Blue Mountains. Call 0403 391 147 to discuss a report, an assessment or a tree management plan.