The Court refused an application for tree removal under s 7 of the Trees (Disputes between Neighbours) Act 2006 (NSW), holding that the applicants failed to satisfy the s 10(2) jurisdictional threshold. On the evidence, the Court was not persuaded that windthrow was probable rather than merely possible, finding the arborist's conclusions about structural compromise from decay and root damage were speculative and unsupported by onsite diagnostic evidence. Damage claims arising from fallen needles and debris were refused on the basis of the Tree Dispute Principle in Barker v Kyriakides, which requires tolerance of reasonable maintenance burdens associated with urban trees, and the Court noted that the applicants had constructed the granny flat under a long-established tree with foreseeable debris issues.
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