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Cllr Katie Dawson and a chestnut tree stump |
Trees axed as fears grow for ‘wonderful’ avenue
Claim that experts were overruled to allow school rebuilding
THE “save our trees” battle has switched to Highbury Grove School, where at least five mature chestnuts have been axed to make way for new buildings.
Islington’s lone Green councillor Katie Dawson has called for the remaining “wonderful” avenue of trees at the Highbury New Park school to be saved.
She is pressing for a borough-wide debate on the way Islington Council implements its tree policy. This follows claims that “perfectly healthy” trees are being “routinely removed” to make way for buildings or to allay insurers’ fears that they cause subsidence.
She claims that advice from the council’s own tree experts is being “completely ignored”. Cllr Dawson says mature trees, often more than a century old, are being replaced by fragile saplings vulnerable to disease or vandalism.
Speaking of the Highbury Grove trees, she said: “These are just coming into leaf and manage to make a grey concrete area green and tolerable.
“They provide a lovely canopy of leaves when you walk past the school. But instead of setting the new buildings back, developers have already taken out five of these trees and want to remove more.”
Cllr Dawson believes planners on Islington Council’s east area committee disregarded advice from the council’s tree experts, who wanted the chestnuts preserved.
“I was not at the particular committee where they made the decision to remove these trees, but anyway their loss was not really made clear at the meeting,” she said.
She pointed to other cases where much-loved trees are under threat, including at Hugh Myddelton School, in Clerkenwell, where three distinctive poplar trees are due to be axed, and at Rheidol Terrace on the Packington estate in Islington, where a 70-year-old London plane tree is to come down to make way for a new development.
Cllr Dawson is calling on the council to review the implementation of its tree policy in an effort to reduce the number being “arbitrarily” axed.
She added: “The council appears to have good, sound tree policies but they are not being implemented.
“I have a lot of sympathy for tree officers but their views are not considered to be as important as those of developers or insurers.”
Cllr Dawson described the council as too “defensive”, although the problem of tree loss is not unique to Islington. “Compared with some boroughs we are probably not bad,” she said. “But pointing to other boroughs that are worse gives Islington a false sense of security.
“Trees are our heritage, our green lungs and once they are gone they are gone for good. Architects and planners should work with them or around them rather than seeking the easy option of removing them.”
The council’s children and young people chief Lib Dem councillor Ursula Woolley said trees were only ever removed after extremely careful consideration.
She added: “The east area planning committee decided to keep most of the trees. They approved a small number of trees to be removed because it would have been impossible to rebuild the school to the right standard otherwise. But the trees will all be replaced with new, similar-sized planting when the work is finished.” |
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