This piece is an extract from our A View from the Forest (previously Forestry Features) newsletter, which is emailed out at 4PM every Wednesday with a round-up of the week's top stories. 

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THERE I was, making my fortnightly drive from my home to a football field in the East End of Glasgow, when I turned into a small, winding, country lane. The sort of lane that doesn't feel like it should be the main thoroughfare but Google assures me it is. Several months ago, this was no problem at all (it still isn't, really), but on this particular night it could have become one.

Nearing the final bend and what had looked in the summer twilight like a farmhouse, a flicker of orange caught the corner of my eye. Then another. And another. Bemused, I slowed down (even more so than usual), and glanced to my left, the reason for this sudden light show revealing itself.

Leaning over the road, practically stroking each vehicle as it passed, was what once had been a perfectly healthy tree. Now, it had the appearance of one that could keel over at any moment, its roots clinging onto the trunk at the roadside.

But instead of removing the offending branches or the tree in its entirety, the solution appeared to be simply to stick a few traffic cones around it and some tape. I didn't hang around to find out just how this would protect me should the heaving tree finally fall onto the road.

While there is every chance that a proper solution was in the works (and equally that there wasn't), this was a reminder of just how lack many can be when it comes to the dangers of trees. We have seen this have devastating consequences.

Take one family in England, which has been left without a husband and father after he was crushed by a falling branch. Chris Hall was out with his cocker spaniel Benson on a path in The Carrs, a woodland area in Wilmslow, Cheshire on August 28, 2020. The 48-year-old suffered fatal injuries when a “limb” from the Lime tree hit him as he walked on a path nearby.

Just 11 months before, in September 2019, another large limb of the same unstable tree had fallen. This was reported to the council, but no real action was ever taken.

If it had, Chris would most likely still be around today.

How many reminders like this do we need before we take dangerous trees seriously?