Power companies have always had the duty of maintaining a safe distance between any overhead line and trees. The Electricity Safety, Quality and Continuity Regulations (ESQCR) are still aimed at protecting the general public and consumers from danger, but the recent amendments have placed the additional duty of power reliability onto the distribution license holders.
Despite the implementation deadline of January 2009 looming and the prospect of having to significantly increase their tree cutting activities to comply with Regulations, it is not yet clear how the new world of vegetation management in electricity utilities will look in the future.
If past performance is anything to go by, it will fall on the contractors to sort it all out. It will be a tough task though without the support of the utility companies, especially when they are being continually pushed contractually to provide more for less.
And where is BERR in all this. They have made a throrough job of assessing the Regulatory Impact http://www.berr.gov.uk/files/file30697.pdf and have threatened strong policing of utilities performance but have they got the will and resources to make any impact - few believe that they have.
So perhaps we are in a period of "wait and see"! It will be interesting to see who has the strongest nerve with the prospect of prosecution hanging over them and who will blink first?