Vancouver park board staff want to inspect the health of city trees less often, partly because they can’t keep up with new demands related to maintaining the city’s 150,000 street trees and 38,000 park trees. But an expert in tree risk assessment warns that while a proposal to change the manner and frequency of tree inspections could be cost-efficient, it might not be cost-effective as it could result in dangerous trees being missed. “It comes down to money, but you’ll miss defects in trees that cause tree parts to fail,” said Norman Oberson, a provincially certified tree risk assessor, owner of Arbutus Tree Service, and a board member of the Trees of Vancouver Society. Instead of conducting detailed inspections and pruning every seven years, park board staff are proposing doing this every 10 years for the city’s street and park trees.