This is also an issue in the NL. I grew up in the UK but I've lived the most significant years of my life in the NL so I feel like I can speak a bit to both cases. If something happens in the countryside with noone around to see there's very little that can be done, there's a certain impunity or a security through obscurity that exists outside of cities.
And I know that this is HN and what I'm about to say doesn't quite meet general etiquette rules here, but the idea that farmers are somehow more controlled in the NL than elsewhere is laughable when the literal Farmers Party is one of the main political forces in the country.
No disagreement on that one, we're out of control to put it mildly. The next elections (which are soon) will be 'interesting' for all the wrong reasons.
Depends on the municipality. Rules around cutting down trees vary from "go ahead if it's not one of these 5 protected trees" to "please pay 1000 euro to request a permit 6 weeks in advance".
Same with the recent story about a famous pub called the Crooked House, which mysteriously caught fire a month after a new owner took over the closed premises and was demolished remarkably swiftly. Because it generated a lot of outrage (not from regular patrons, but from people who liked how it looked), it got more attention than your average arson where the owners were obvious suspects, and sure enough there have been actual arrests as well as rumours about other fires involving the same owners and evidence of demolition equipment having been leased the day before the fire
If it gets in the newspapers etc, then it's suddenly in their interests to do something.
DNA samples will be getting taken as we speak.
