Park Collection Planning , Development and WDCO Forum
I had a look round the estate at what has survived the drought and what hasn't, and it set me to thinking what concessions we should make to trees in the new design/masterplan for the next phase of the estate development.
This is what I've come up with
Trees
It must be acknowledged that Woodberry Down is a completely artificial, man made environment, terra-formed for our convenience.
The New River, neither new nor a river, was hewn by hand to bring water from out of town to the inner suburbs.
The reservoirs were dug to maintain and enhance that water supply.
The landscaping is entirely fabricated to fill in the space between the tower blocks, man’s monument to his own fecundity.
The trees too, are where and what they are because someone decided so.
And yet, a religious fervour has grown up about them that they must remain where they are, as they are because they are old.
This is irrational.
We are building this substantial estate for our convenience. We need to take rational decisions based on what our needs now are. Badly placed trees, with a declining lifespan, unsuited to our increasingly drought-ridden climate should be replaced, with species we now know to be better suited to an urban housing estate in the middle of a climate crisis.
One of the concessions made by the estate designers is to the tree-huggers. That is a mistake. Trees can be replaced just as blocks of council flats can, it just takes a little longer.
My suggestion
Put the commitment to conserving ancient trees in the context of a modern strategy and preserve only those which match our updated criteria
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Replies
The problem, in my view, is that mature trees are 'replaced' with small, young ones. Far more new (smaller) trees are needed to match the eco-benefits of a mature one and we are not seeing and not capable of planting sufficient numbers of young trees. Much gets written about the number of new trees planted on a development but this doesn't take into account their age. They tend to be young/small and contributing little, beyond aesthetics. They also don't get watered during the hot weather, for the first three years of their life, so they tend to die. The on-going maintenance of young trees is being overlooked. Fell a mature tree and you develop an on-going operational cost that you didn't have before, as well as the capital cost of new trees.
'Ancient' in the world of trees is a specific term. I don't think we have any ancient trees within the development area. We have established mature trees, many of which could be retained if that had been the original policy. Planners are now playing catch-up because they didn't pay sufficient attention before and because more attention is being paid to the contribution made by trees.
I should like to see greater transparency of the ecological 'balance sheet' associated with any further tree felling. For example, CO2 consumption from a felled tree being replaced by CO2 consumption from x number of new trees and NOT simply a tree count. I should also like to see more evidence of a plan relating to the on-going maintence of young trees. It's very easy for people to get excited about capital projects (opening up of paths around the West reservoir is another example), but who is taking into account the impact on the increased and long-term operational costs (e.g. path maintenance, bank repair, increased security etc in the case of the reservoir).
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