Tree maintenance and felling along roads

We manage not only approximately 350 km of roads, but also many thousands of trees along those roads. Tree management is a responsible task that involves many aspects. Our priority is to ensure that trees do not pose a danger to road users and the environment.

Maintenance

To ensure safety, it is necessary to regularly inspect and prune trees. Sometimes it is necessary to fell trees and then plant new ones. Expert and timely pruning reduces future maintenance on the trees and limits the risk of damage. We are cautious about large-scale felling, but sometimes we have to cut down trees. An orange or white dot on a tree means that this tree will be felled. This may be for the following reasons, for example:

• damage caused by diseases or fungi;
• severe necrosis or death;
• instability;
• serious damage (collision damage, storm damage);
• skewed position on the road.

Damage to trees

We treat trees with monumental or valuable status with care and combat diseases such as Dutch elm disease and other diseases and pests that can destroy valuable trees. We attempt to recover damages caused by third parties. To prevent damage to trees and their roots, conditions are included in the permit for excavation work on the roadside.

Replacement

Nowadays, we no longer think in terms of 'production wood', but prefer to opt for a more sustainable and varied tree population. Where trees have been felled, we replant new trees in accordance with the landscape vision, whereby no single tree species accounts for more than 20% of the tree population. This makes the tree population more resistant to diseases, pests, and climate change. When replanting, we prefer to choose species that pose as little risk as possible to traffic safety and are relatively low-maintenance. In doing so, we naturally take cultural-historical, ecological, and landscape values into account.