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Councillor Paul Convery |
A plane case of vandalism
FOR more than 100 years, the six distinctive 60-foot London plane trees graced the pavement in Pentonville Road, King’s Cross, seemingly untouched by the clouds of traffic pollution and the shudder of lorries.
This week, a team of contractors believed to be from Bovis unceremoniously axed the street trees, which were bequeathed by the Victorians in an effort to green the city.
The trees were removed because they apparently impeded work on a new ‘Nido’ student hostel development, due to open in September at the former NatWest towers opposite the Help the Aged offices.
But local residents, including Labour Caledonian ward Councillor Paul Convery, were appalled at the loss of such important specimens in an area devoid of green spaces.
“This is just environmental vandalism,” Cllr Convery said. “There was no consultation as far as I know. There was no attempt to dig around and avoid these important trees.
“It makes a complete mockery of the development control process. This is a blatant breach of planning conditions which required the developers to protect and retain these trees.”
However, Islington Council’s executive member for leisure and equalities, Lib Dem Cllr Ruth Polling, said: “Transport for London is developing student accommodation and because we love trees as much as residents, a condition of their planning application is that they replace the lost trees.”
But Cllr Convery was not impressed.
He said: “What will they replace them with? Some weedy saplings that are simply snapped off by local vandals?”
“The council should be protecting our green heritage not allowing it to be destroyed to make life easier for rich developers.”
King’s Cross has already suffered from the loss of 13 saplings planted by Islington council in the nearby York Way area as the Tribune reported last week.
The trees were all paid for by local residents who raised £4,000.
In this case the culprits are believed to be yobs coming home from the late nightclubs in the area.
Local resident Stephan Schulte said: “We wanted to brighten up the area.
“Let’s face it Kings Cross needs brightening up – but someone came along and simply snapped the trees in half.”
Islington has 40,000 trees across the borough, and is regularly planting new sopecimens.
The Council’s tree service is responsible for caring for trees on council-owned land.
There is also a service within the council which deals with trees on private land, applications regarding tree preservation orders and conservation areas.
For more information contact the Islington Council tree service on 020 7527 2000. |
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We too have the same problem in Bristol and our losing our dramatic trees at an alarming rate. Street trees have no legalprotection. Most are not replaced but the few that are repalanted areusually with trees that will never become large such as Rowans and
flowering cherries. Our council has no street strategy and makes no effort to engage the public on the issue of street trees.Your readers might like to see: http://www.bristolstreettrees.org
Vassili Papastavrou
Great that you covered this story! As I send you this
message, there are more trees being savaged by so-called tree-
surgeons in Barnsbury Road. I challenged the 2 men happily swinging
their chainsaws who lopped off branches that are NO WHERE NEAR ANY
PASSING PEDESTRIAN OR CAR! They were very cavalier and said "they had
to do this, it's their job". I said that didn't justify cutting back
trees so aggressively. Where is the consultation with us tax-payers
for this work? Why don't we ever see these people planting trees? I
hope you can continue to express the rage people feel about this
environmental damage which is supposed to be about health and safety.
I'd prefer more branches and more leaves and more shade and oxygen at
the height of Summer, not less. Lovely Midsummer Day this is turning
out to be in not so leafy Barnsbury!
Zohra Rizvi |
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