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Why wreck our graceful trees?
• I AGREE with 1 CL Shanks’s letter (Brutal cuts to trees, February 19).
The annual and severe pruning of the borough’s trees is wholly unnecessary and does not warrant this expense of our council tax. In the guidelines relating to tree work, there are specific recommendations for pruning, thinning or pollarding as it impacts on the tree’s health and it should be avoided if possible. Reasons for pruning might mean branches have partially broken off, are causing an obstruction or the tree is diseased or poses a safety threat. Otherwise there is no need to constantly strip them of their natural shape.
Perhaps Camden can provide a valid reason why they have just topped the trees on Leighton Road, Kentish Town, creating problems with the trees that were not existent before? Taking out the smaller branches that diffuse the movement in the wind makes the tree top-heavy and far more likely to blow down in gales.
The graceful trees that line our streets now survived at least one world war and the Great Storm of 1987 (the ultimate test and proof that they did not need thinning or cutting back) but are ruined in a couple of hours by ferocious tree surgeons. The ones on Lady Margaret Road are some of the worst, so distorted by years of pollarding that they will never recover their shape. We’ll never have the leafy avenues of other European cities while this practice continues.
C GRAHAM
Leighton Road, NW5
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