Cycling to London’s Islington this morning to meet a contact, I spotted a man digging a hole next to a truck carrying a load of trees.
I stopped at once and found that he was in the process of planting seven trees on Upper Street. This is a long, reasonably wide shopping and dining street which has haphazard and rather too occasional trees along it.
I think he and his mate thought I was completely mad. I told him he was changing the world and that he should be putting up even more trees in Upper Street.
He told me the council were paying for them and paying him to plant them.
Continuing my journey, I found myself fumbling with the maths. Less than £20 for the maple, less than £2 for the horse manure, and let’s say £10 an hour for the guy digging. A pretty fabulous investment for posterity.
It should be happening all over the country – but isn’t. In fact, with even more of the nation’s streets being dug up for the replacement of Victorian drains and the laying of fibre-optic cables, councils should be compelling the digger uppers to plant a tree every 20 yards they dig.
That’s enough digging from me.
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It wasn’t only trees that paid the price when a rather nasty local builder put up his development at the bottom of our gardens. Not only the promised trees – replacements for those he bulldozed on his site and shown on his plans – were never planted but an area designated “a play area for children”, required by planning law when the houses built reaches a certain number materialised as another four houses! Again – no trees!
The Planning Office did nothing.
I wonder how common this is.
Just did a tweet telling both Mayors to look at this, sadly dont think they will & when we left Derby in feb for Berlin the council cut down at least 6 Trees on Friargate, all were well over 100years old, & two years befor that thay bulldozed, yes BULLDOZED well over 100 in Alvaston/Wilmorton old College Park, why houses & the latter a Road, Derby Council have NO Idea about protecting Enviroment, the Cathedral has a Peregrine Falcon nest, what they do, pavement over it closest hunting ground.
You have forgotten the considerable cost of maintaining the trees, pruning and irrigation, removing leaves, footpath repair and so on. However, most studies seem to find the benefits of city trees vastly outweigh the costs (e.g. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/18/nyregion/18trees.html). I suppose many of the benefits don’t crop up so obviously in the council balance-sheets.
I heard that trees were the problem, rather than the solution. Everyone’s a scientist.Whatever happened to null hypothesis? Are we all believers now? Is that the assumption?
Or do we just want want to sit-around, feeling good about ourselves???
“Plant a tree in 73″. There were stamps promoting this activity 36 years ago, for very good reason. We knew about the problem then, but still need to do a lot more replanting today…
Jon, you are absolutely right in your assessment of ‘changing the world’.
How many people can be so ignorant to the desperate need for trees and, the massive benefits they bring, beggars belief. Those who fell or abuse trees should be imprisoned.
The promotion and love of trees and nature, starts in childhood and via great roll models such as Allan Tistmarsh, the late Geoff. Hamilton, David Attenbourough, etc.
Here are links to the Arboriculture Association & International Society:
http://www.trees.org.uk/index.php
http://www.isa-arboriculture.org/
Hope someone finds them useful.
The tree outside our house was removed because it was impacting on the lamp post despite the tree been there long before. Leeds council had no interest in replacing it. We lost the privacy from the buses that went past and protection from the summer sun the deciduous trees were used to give.
This is a commonplace poblem Simon , not only in towns , but in the suburbs.
When trees are planted near to houses, structures become unsafe,.Large trees also keep the light out of others property and growing spaces. If the neighbours would keep their trees in check the I could grow more vegetables.
Care needs to be taken when planting with a little foresight or regular maintenance. What I would do in your circumstances is go to some wood which is overgrown with saplings and plant one at night, but dont tell anybody .
I once lived not far from Upper Street on Richmond Avenue, and discovered how vulnerable our trees actually are. Two men and a lorry turned up one afternoon to cut the plane tree down outside my flat. When I queried this I was told it was because my neighbour had complained that the branches were a danger to his front garden. “Is that all it takes?” I spluttered. ‘Yep,’ the man replied, ‘but we’ll stop if you call our boss and say you don’t want us to do it.’ And that’s all it took to save it. Tree Preservation Orders apparently didn’t cover those on the streets.
Coventry City Council has plans to build 33,000 homes, many of them obliterating the Green Belt surrounding the City. Thousands of trees will die!
If the go-ahead is given vast areas of our countryside will be concreted over, including many acres adjacent to precious patches of the Ancient Arden Forest.
1000year old hedgerows will be grubbed out. Vital wildlife habitat will be lost forever, valuable lush farmland will no longer produce food, and the peace and tranquility of some beautiful scenery will be destroyed.
The Planning Inquiry started today. The Council are demanding de-regulation of the Green Belt, and building consortiums have already earmarked “Keresley Eco Suburb” to start within 2 years!
Weep now for our heritage.
No where near enough and doesn’t touch the sides of the effort that should be put in to get this planet back on its gravitational feet.
adzmundo CND
anyone who lives in the swindon area (and i live in bristol so that counts) should go and take part in the massive tree plant event on the 5th december. it’s going to be a wonderful opportunity to make a difference. i have been on tree planting events before and not only is it easy to plant a tree, you are creating a forested area to be enjoyed by many many people in the future.
There should be more trees in towns , but with the policy of paying farmers for laying land waste,why not pay them to reforest the land particularly on the hill farms
Great idea – Trees in towns are fine – but how many will it take to make a forest – problem with franers planting trees – is the long time for payback – but as the Govt. has plenty money for the Banks – they must surely have plenty to get the farmers to plant .
I was surprised when our local council cut down mature trees here to make space for flats. I joined the Woodland Trust and they plant trees on our behalf. http://www.Woodlandtrust.org.uk
I am part of a great residents association, the HCRA, and we have been raising money to plant more trees in our streets in harrow fr the past few years. Initially we payed about £45 per tree, however the cost has escalated now to £160.00 per tree. I think this is terrible and would appreciate any campaigning to get the costs down.
Jon, Next time you go to the LRB in Bury Place cycle 59 metres down Little Russell Street and have a look at the two magnificent plane trees outside St George’s, Bloomsbury. They’re neglected by the church and overgrown but in the spring blackbirds nest and sing in the their ivy. New Oxford Street is 30 metres away!
Yes trees are my passion . The neighbours dont quite understand though . To have many trees around , the big one that has a large canopy and nudges all other species out of the way has to be kept in check. If nature does it’s own thing, then this large tree drops all its seedlings which germinate and grow by the dozen and all the others are choked to death… we then get less trees..
Tree maintenance is hard work and an important part of cutting down C02 emissions, for without trees, we would find it hard to breathe as they exude their oxygenated products into our shared air.
A significant cause of damage and death to urban trees comes from dogs being allowed to strip bark and hang from branches. The problem appears to have worsened over the last 12 months. Owners are strength-training their canines’ jaws and muscles. Terriers as well as ’status-dogs’ are involved, and mature and street-trees, together with younger specimens, affected. On one green space, also in Islington, north London, 60 of 68 trees were recently found to be damaged, dying or dead. Similar carnage can be found throughout London and in other urban centres.
The Guardian was the first newspaper to report the problem (18 August), an issue which is compounded by general ignorance – across classes, ages and genders – that damaging bark can kill a tree.
The London Tree Officers’ Association is leading a public-education campaign in the capital to address matters which it’s hoped will in turn spur similar action across the UK. We can all play a part, however, by keeping a watchful eye on the health of our vital urban trees.
The date of the Guardian piece was 11 August. Apologies for error.
i wish more attention went into mature trees ie not cutting them down because they support alot of organisms . but the price some town building works , to re design the grassmarket (Edinburgh)could have re forested half of scotland possibaly
Jon just going back to some past blogs, not only do some bloggers not read the original comment properly when they comment they also have short memories, unless they have just come in ’so to speak’.
Although my interpretation of your articles sometimes may not be spot on, I think I can just about grasp that you understand that trees absorb CO2 and exude 02. Just having a narcky moment somewhere else on the blog site.
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