The Wardman Wire

The Times today covers a research report into management of Trees in our urban areas: Trees in Towns II. The number of trees in our towns has decreased since the previous report (Trees in Towns I) was published in the early 1990s.

They have a good tag line:

Councils across Britain have embarked on what environmentalists have called a “chainsaw massacre”.

Health and Safety: Trip Hazard

Trees are coming down as a Health and Safety risk (”trip hazard”), or being replaced by “lollipops” (for example replacing Limes with silly bushes such as varieties of prunus - flowering cherry).

Even when new trees are planted, they are often far smaller species than those they replace, leading to what Mark Johnston — research fellow in urban forestry at Myerscough College, Lancashire and co-author of the report — labelled a “lollipop landscape”.

Trees are not replaced

Replacement rates are low:

The investigation, carried out for the Department of Communities and Local Government, covered samples of trees in 140 towns and cities. It found that planting programmes have almost ground to a halt in many areas — just 0.4% of urban trees in London and the Southeast have been planted in the past five years.

Plan ahead - what’s that?

And trees that will take 50 years to regrow are being removed without thought being given to long term consequences:

Two weeks ago, the problem reached Parliament Square in central London when 12 mature plane trees were chopped down to make way for new security barriers and CCTV cameras along Whitehall and on Parliament Street.

“Trees that have taken 60 years to grow and been part of the London landscape since the war have been simply removed and replaced with small ornamental trees,” said Pauline Buchanan-Black, chief executive of the Tree Council. “The government is hardly leading by example.”

Overall, a third of the capital’s boroughs have seen a net loss of trees in the last five years and 40,000 trees have been chopped down in total. In Manchester, the city council has earmarked 1,700 poplar trees for chainsawing because of disease. In Edinburgh, more than 100 trees — including 150-year-old horse chestnuts — are to be chopped down in an urban woodland close to the city centre for “regeneration”.

I rushed outside in my pyjamas

Sometimes there can be little or no consultation:

Andrew Horseman, 49, an aircraft engineer from Knaresborough, North Yorkshire, rushed into the street in his pyjamas one morning earlier this year after hearing a chainsaw being taken to a mature London plane tree outside his home. He could not prevent council tree surgeons removing the tree’s canopy but they did leave an 8ft stump after he complained that residents had not been consulted.

“I was furious,” he said. “The council says the trees are a trip hazard but as far as we can establish nobody has ever fallen over them. At the same time the council is paying about £2,000 of taxpayers’ money to remove each tree.

“This is a beautiful tree-lined street and the children play out at night under them. Some of them are 80 years old and without them this would be just another barren city road.” A spokesman for Harrogate borough council, which covers Knaresborough, said it was “indifferent” to the trees outside Horseman’s house.

In Knaresborough, replacements have been promised.

We need a Cultural Change…

I find it highly surprising that in an age of “Environmental Friendliness”, and at a time when birds are under threat, that this is even possible. This state of affairs is unnacceptable under Environmental Policy - never mind Tree Policy.

It is about basic attitudes, and we need a cultural change. It is ironic that - like open spaces - the trees most threatened are those in public ownership (chop down a “Tree Preservation Order tree and it could cost you £20k). It seems to me that we need a number of developments.

1. Significantly to rein in the all-pervasive Health and Safety culture that suffocates so many areas of our society.
2. If that means that people must now take responsibility for looking where they are going, then so be it. Legally transfer more (but not necessarily all) liability for trip-ups to the people who are careless.
3. I’m tempted to say put a legal duty on Councils to plant numbers equal to at least 1.50-2% of their urban tree stock each year.
4. Require trees removed by public bodies to be replaced one for one (or two or three for one).

And a Long War on obsessional Health and Safety

The best lever may be by emphasising the importance of Trees in Environmental terms, while continuing the long war against the runaway Health and Safety Culture. The latter will take decades to root out - sowe had better start now.

Tags: trees in towns, myerscough institute, myerscough college, tree preservation order, council tree officer, health and saferty culture, trip hazard, harrogate council, knaresborough, london plane, chainsaw massacre, Mark Johnston, Parliament Square, andrew horseman, stump chomper[tags]trees in towns, myerscough institute, myerscough college, tree preservation order, council tree officer, health and saferty culture, trip hazard, harrogate council, knaresborough, london plane, chainsaw massacre, Mark Johnston, Parliament Square, andrew horseman, stump chomper[/tags]