Tree surgeons at work in Carlton Avenue East
Guest post by local resident L. Green
Last Monday a team of tree 'surgeons’ employed or commissioned by the Council came to Carlton Avenue East and began to demolish a beautiful and sturdy lime tree, one of the many that have lined both sides of this street for eighty odd years.
There was a small amount of fungus growing at the bottom; perhaps someone had complained, but the trunk was sound and the branches decked with as many leaves as all the neighbouring trees. A walk through most woodland will reveal similar fungus growing all over the place.
Early pictures of the street, from Brent Archives, show the newish houses with the recently planted trees in neat rows on both sides. The same view appears in the 1950's Terry Thomas film 'Too Many Crooks', shot in the area and screened at Preston Community Library in 2017.
When the Preston Park Estate was built in the 1920s and 1930s, tree lined avenues were clearly part of the overall vision for the development. Now in a period of great anxiety about climate change, we watch as trees are destroyed with few seeming to care.
When I moved to this area in the 1990s I used to delight in walking along neighbouring Longfield Avenue. It was lined with a row of glorious Maples, which turned bright red and gold each Autumn. There was also cherry tree with deep pink blossom each spring. Now the Maples and the cherry have all gone, and there are only two trees left in the street, which is greatly diminished as a result. In adjoining Glendale Gardens most of the trees have gone, at least two have gone from Grasmere and in the last fortnight a tree has suddenly disappeared from the roundabout where Windermere Avenue joins Grasmere. All this devastation in just four streets - Is this typical of the whole of Brent, just how many trees have gone? Should we be mapping them?
In 2019 the Greater London Authority provided thousands of trees for Londoners to plant in their communities, and SKPPRA, the local residents' association duly organised a planting in Preston Park. However it seems likely that in this area at least, for every tree planted more than one has gone. The R number for trees is over 1!
Clearly there will be some occasions when a tree genuinely has to go. In Montpelier Rise there is a leafless tree that is as ex as the proverbial dead parrot, though unusually there is no demolition notice posted on its trunk. However, there should be a proper programme of replacement for all trees cut down, and a decent notice period when any tree is endangered, so that local people can respond when the destruction is unjustified.
Trees contribute so much to our environment - not just to the attractiveness of the street scene and as homes for birds and other wildlife, but to our safety. A neighbour had a large weeping willow in her garden which recently died. Now her garden floods more in storms, because the willow was drinking up water from the saturated ground.
We need a programme of tree planting in our streets and parks, to both replace what has already been lost and to increase the overall number. There are plenty of local sites where trees could be planted. In Carlton Avenue East the rhythm of the planting will be spoilt by the absence of the cut down tree, and a similar tree needs to be installed as a replacement. The Borough needs to increase the number of trees, to play it's part in improving our environment and fighting climate change.
