Showing posts with label trees. Show all posts
Showing posts with label trees. Show all posts

Monday 10 July 2023

Brent Council accused of 'hypocritical stance' on planning guidance

 This guest post byMarc Etukudo is based on an email he sent to Brent Council yesterday:

I would like to draw your attention to an article I read this morning in the Harrowonline (Harrow Times) about Brent Council's new guidelines for developers operating within the borough. The only problem is that Brent Council does not practice what it preaches......

 

 

 Brent Council has introduced new guidelines for developers operating within the borough.

 (Source - Harrowonline - Harrow Times)

 

 

The council’s Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs) aim to enhance the quality of life for local communities while creating a greener and healthier environment.

The first SPD, titled ‘Residential Amenity Space and Place Quality’, focuses on making Brent a vibrant, inclusive, and thriving community.

Cllr Shama Tatler, the Cabinet Member for Regeneration, Planning, and Growth at Brent Council expressed her pride in Brent’s pioneering efforts to tackle pressing issues such as the climate crisis and health inequalities.

She stressed that well-designed and sustainable development plays a crucial role in enriching the lives of residents.

Our residents deserve great places to live, and well-designed, sustainable development is a key factor in enriching people’s quality of life.”

 

This is yet another example of Brent Council's hypocritical stance. On one hand they say one thing, set down laws for others to follow but yet on the other hand they break every law set down by themselves for others to follow and totally ignore it for themselves when it suits them. 

The proposal planned for Newland Court is one example of Brent Council’s hypocritical stance. They are ignoring all the laws that they set out in their planning guidance to push this proposal through. In Cllr Shama Tatler’s statement she says:-

‘The council’s Supplementary Planning Documents (SPDs) aim to enhance the quality of life for local communities while creating a greener and healthier environment.’

‘She expressed her pride in Brent’s pioneering efforts to tackle pressing issues such as the climate crisis and health inequalities.’

‘Our residents deserve great places to live, and well-designed, sustainable development is a key factor in enriching people’s quality of life.’

How is destroying healthy mature trees that house many wildlife including many species of birds and 3 species of bats and reducing our urban green space creating a greener and healthier environment? How is this tackling the climate crisis and health inequalities in the community?

This is actually doing the opposite. Destroying all the greenery around Newland Court is going to have a detrimental effect on the mental wellbeing of existing residents who, as you already know, have been treated with systemic discrimination since this proposal started and of which, are all against this proposal.

Then building crammed tiny houses with little or inadequate amenity spaces, under what’s left of the trees that omit sticky residue and will need constant pruning. Initially, anyone offered a 3-4 bedroomed home would be glad if they are moving in from temporary dwellings. But this will also eventually affect the mental wellbeing of the new tenants after a few months of moving in.

Brent Council has not once taken the thoughts or feelings of the existing residents at Newland Court into consideration. Instead they want to turn a great place where we live, and destroy the quality of life we enjoy to build a concrete jungle on a site that just isn’t viable to build on. So much for tackling the climate crisis, health inequalities and enriching people's quality of life.


Brent Council plans to move the pavement and parking spaces to the right from where the grass starts taking away a quarter of our green space and also want to build a children’s play area which will only encourage ASB including drug users, pushers and alcohol consumption. None of us want a play area and residents who have lived here for 20, 30, 40, 50 and beyond whose kids grew up and have left home never had it. Obviously it's for the new families that Brent  wants to move into the tiny cramped new homes.   


 

All the trees you see are by the fences in the back gardens of residents at Grendon Gardens which is in Barn Rise conservation area. As you can see, all the tree canopies are overhanging by a few metres across  and over the garages that Brent wants to replace with 3-4 bed roomed houses. This means that all the trees will have to be cut back to the fences and if that doesn’t kill them and all the wildlife including 3 species of bats. Then maybe constant pruning and digging through their roots to lay down foundations for the 3-4 bedroom homes during construction will.

 

 

Trees benefit the environment

 

Trees absorb carbon dioxide as they grow and the carbon that they store in their wood helps slow the rate of global warming. They reduce wind speeds and cool the air as they lose moisture and reflect heat upwards from their leaves. It’s estimated that trees can reduce the temperature in a city by up to 7°C. Trees also help prevent flooding and soil erosion, absorbing thousands of litres of storm water.

 

 

Trees boost wildlife

 

Trees host complex microhabitats. When young, they offer habitation and food to amazing communities of birds, insects, lichen and fungi. When ancient, their trunks also provide the hollow cover needed by species such as bats, wood boring beetles, tawny owls and woodpeckers.

 

Monday 16 August 2021

Eulogy for a dead tree - killed by Brent Council

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.

Monday 25 January 2021

TFL's destruction of the trackside vegetation at the Metropolitan/Chiltern Line January 2021

Guest post by Emma Wallace, Green Party Candidate for the Brent and Harrow GLA Constituency

 

 

Emma Wallace at the scene

 

Residents living next to the Metropolitan and Chiltern lines straddling the boroughs of Harrow and Hillingdon, have witnessed a series of distressing environmental actions carried out by TFL this new year.   Over the last two weeks, TFL contractors have been arriving daily with chainsaws, strimmer’s and tree chippers and removing huge stretches of trees and vegetation running along the Metropolitan line between Pinner towards Northwood Hills.  This act of environmental vandalism has meant a biodiverse, green corridor has now been severely reduced, impacting nearby residents’ health and mental well-being, as well as removing habitat for local wildlife. 

 


 Post-destruction

 

Destruction of habitat and wildlife by TFL Contractors

Simon Joshua, founder of Harrow Biodiversity and Environment, has visited and reported about the destruction near the Hazeldene Estate, Pinner, located just metres from the Metropolitan and Chiltern lines.  He writes:

 

 “Green corridors are vital, protected habitats for many wildlife species.  They enable them to forage, travel to find new populations and areas to reproduce in.  Isolated pockets of green are infinitely less beneficial.  Motorways, roads and railways provide ideal, protected green corridors and provide a haven for many species that would otherwise not be able to survive in today’s urban areas.  Most of these areas remain inaccessible to people and therefore are relatively undisturbed.”

 

The green corridors running along the Met line are a rich habitat for a diverse range of wildlife, from owls, kites, woodpeckers, jackdaws, robins, parakeets and numerous other birds, to badgers, hedgehogs, foxes and other mammals.

 These species, many protected by law, are increasingly forced into these small green spaces, as a result of the loss of suitable habitat through increasing development in London.  Now that mature trees of 20+ years have been felled along this Met line embankment, squirrels lack a place to forage, birds have lost their nest sites, woodpeckers have lost trees for feeding and nesting and the perch for the local owl has gone.  And as Simon Joshua states, “TFL claims that the removal of trees is vital for safety.  Apparently, it is not about leaves.  The trees being removed are not old, not diseased and not in danger of falling down.  How many incidents have there been in the past ten years along this stretch of the railway?”  Listen to Simon talk about the damage that has occurred along this stretch of track in Pinner, HERE

 

 


 Karen Pillai

Local resident Karen Pillai, who lives on the Hazeldene Estate, had set up ‘Pinner Green Junior Wildlife Group’  for local children to learn about the wildlife in their neighbourhood and help preserve the environment they live in.  They had also started a biodiversity project with the support of local MP for Ruislip, Northwood and Pinner, David Simmonds and local councillors.  The children are absolutely devastated that the wildlife now has nowhere to live and their green environment has disappeared. 

 

Witnessing the destruction over the last two weeks, Karen Pillai asked the contractors whether an ecological survey of the area they were clearing had been completed or if they were aware that the trees they were felling contained birds’ nests.  Their response was to laugh at her.  The contractors who carry out TFL’s Trackside Vegetation Management, ‘Cleshar Contract Services’, were awarded a £10-25 million pound contract until March 2022 LINK.    It appears that these contractors have little awareness of the environmental value of these track-side spaces they have been given to manage, the importance of trees or the legal obligation to protect many species that live here.  

 

Impact on residents’ health and well-being

 

Whilst the loss of wildlife is tragic in itself, it is also the impact to resident’s health and well-being that is of huge concern.  The local community were not informed by TFL that these works were going to be carried out, consequently have not had an opportunity to raise concerns or ask for a consultation of the works to be carried out.  They are now left without trees to protect them from the pollution, light and noise from frequent trains passing, both on the Met line and the Chiltern Railway. 

 

Karen Pillai writes:

  “These trees protect us from pollution as we are bordered by the tube line which produces emissions and the busy main road on the other side.  Systematic removal of our protection from air pollution puts those who live on our estate at a higher risk of lung disease and also more susceptible to illness. Deforestation also has links to pandemics, because nature acts as a buffer protecting us from many illnesses including Covid.  This is why parks and green spaces were deemed safe last year, during the pandemic.  We live in a high pollution area and there is a high incidence of asthma and lung disease in children because of traffic pollution.  Some of the work was carried out last year and we thought that was the end of it; but now they are removing more trees and green cover which will make it worse.

The trees also provide a barrier from the noise of the constant tube trains and dampen the continuous roar. Trees provide us with shade and help offset flooding and land slippage. Our flats already suffer from severe damp, without removing the bordering trees that help to drain it. The trees also support each other and removing the undergrowth increases the risk of larger trees falling.”

 

On the right lines? Report

 

 

In January 2012 The London Assembly Environment Committee published a report entitled ‘On the right lines? Vegetation Management on London’s Railway Embankments’   LINK.   This report highlights how London Underground trackside land totals 10% of all green space in the city and has huge environmental importance.  Darren Johnson, then Green Party Assembly Member and Deputy Chair of the Environment Committee, wrote about the embankment vegetation: 

 

“Not only can it provide privacy and enhance the attractiveness of neighbourhoods, it also shields residents from disturbance and dust generated by passing trains.  Moreover, London’s biodiversity benefit from the habitats and wildlife corridors that line-side vegetation provides across the length and breadth of the capital. It is a vital green asset for Londoners.”  

 

The report goes on to point out that there has been much public concern about TFLs line-side maintenance over the years, including the excessive removal of vegetation, the disturbance to wildlife and the lack of correspondence with residents.  The report makes three key recommendations, including “that local residents are accurately informed as to the nature of the works, how long they will take and how the wildlife is going to be effectively protected.  Many residents living alongside railway lines are passionate about the trees and wildlife at the bottom of their gardens and I would like to see line-side managers make common cause with residents to treat these green spaces more as assets and not as a maintenance liability.”

 

A problem across the whole of the TFL Underground Network

 

Reading the On the right lines report more than nine years on, it appears that little has changed and the recommendations have unfortunately not been implemented by TFL.  Along with the recent events along Pinner’s Met line, there have been frequent reports of unnecessary tree felling and excessive removal of undergrowth by TFL across the more than 55% of tube network that is above ground.  

 

In 2019, there was an online 38 Degrees petition started by Chris Sullivan, calling on Sadiq Khan and Transport for London to ‘Stop Destroying the Trees on the Piccadilly and Metropolitan Line’, focusing specifically on the Piccadilly line stretch between Rayners Lane and Ealing Common:  LINK    

 

In February 2019, residents living near Chigwell to Grange Hill stations on the Central Line complained about the lack of consultation and the unnecessary felling of trees to be carried out by TFL over an 18 month period.  This report states that 60,000 tonnes of vegetation were to be removed:   LINK   LINK 

 

In May 2020, residents near Wimbledon Park on the District Line reported “very aggressive men with chainsaws” causing major environmental damage, reducing privacy to their homes and affecting their mental well-being during a pandemic.  They were also not consulted about the trackside work  LINK.  

 

The London Mayor’s Green Promises

 

In 2018, Sadiq Khan set out a bold vision in his ‘London Environment Strategy’ to protect, increase and improve London’s green infrastructure and make London the world’s first National Park City  LINK.      The mayor has since launched many Green initiatives to encourage people to get involved in London’s green spaces and help address the climate and ecological emergency.  

 

 In November 2020, he announced he was investing more than £10 million in green projects, including £700 000 to the ‘Mayor's Grow Back Greener Fund’, awarded to a range of community projects to create and improve green spaces  LINK Khan has also invested almost £5 million pounds in tree planting projects in London since 2017.  Whilst these initiatives are admirable in their efforts to make London a greener city, wouldn’t it be more logical to try and preserve the already biodiverse, green urban spaces we have running alongside our tube network?  This would save money and ensure that wildlife and vegetation that already exists has a home for years to come.  The money saved could also be invested to proper training for TFL contractors on vegetation management and trackside biodiversity and habitat protection?

 

In June 2020, Lib Dem Assembly Member Caroline Pidgeon asked the Mayor to set out the “overall policies that TfL adopts towards tree cutting and felling alongside London Underground lines.”   LINK  Sadiq Khan listed a number of reasons why tree felling track-side may occur, stating that “TfL is also committed to enhancing biodiversity where possible."  He also stated that “Sites are assessed prior to and during works, and if a nest is found the work is stopped and a buffer zone of vegetation is left in place.”  Both these statements have been contravened by the actions carried out by TFL along the Metropolitan line this January.

 

Future actions for TFL?

 

With this excessive removal of vegetation along the Met Line, we have lost another rich, green space in London that would help mitigate the effects of climate change, air pollution and provide a place for wildlife to live.  The environmental vandalism carried out by TFL and their contractors reveals a disregard for our climate, population and wildlife, of which we share the planet.  I call on the London Mayor and TFL to immediately stop the excessive removal of habitat from trackside embankments and ensure that biodiversity surveys are carried out before work begins, that local residents are informed and given time to feedback concerns, and that the contractors are trained on effective vegetation management. 

 

Simon Joshua also suggests that “there may be an opportunity to correct the ecological disaster that we have witnessed.  The council has already given permission to plant along their side of the fence line.  It may take a decade to come close to what has been exterminated this month, but we could plant an area that would benefit residents of the estate and homes but also encourage wildlife to return.  In order to do this, we require financial compensation to provide trees and plants to replace what TFL has destroyed.”

 

Please contact the below TFL representatives and make your thoughts know about the recent actions:

 

 

TFLs Chief Safety, Health and Environmental Officer, Lilli Matson 

LilliMatson@tfl.gov.uk

 

TFLs Head of Track for London Underground, Duncan Weir

Duncan.Weir@tube.tfl.gov.uk

 

 

 

Friday 9 October 2020

Kodak site trees saved in campaign led by Harrow Green Party GLA candidate

 

Harrow Green Party are very pleased to announce that Barratts, developers of the Kodak site in Harrow, have officially withdrawn their planning application (P/2661/20) to remove 26 trees along Harrow View Road.  After leading a campaign against the removal of these mature trees, with over 350 people submitting objections against the application, Harrow Greens are delighted that the developers have recognised the importance of these trees and acted accordingly.  

 

Emma Wallace, GLA Green Party candidate for Brent and Harrow  said:

 

This is fantastic news for Harrow, ensuring that the trees continue to provide a green welcome to people travelling along this busy thoroughfare, continue to support the local ecosystem and wildlife, and help limit air pollution, both now and into the future.  

 

This campaign proves that community action can work when acting together, standing up for our local area and the vital wildlife and green spaces we still have in Harrow.  I hope that Barratts will now ensure that they look after these trees and that any maintenance carried out is completed carefully and sympathetically, ensuring the overall health of these trees is preserved.

 

Sunday 27 September 2020

Harrow Green Party protests against proposed tree removal by Kodak developers

 

Some familiar issues are emerging in our neighbouring borough that we are already having to deal with in Brent. The Green Party's GLA candidate for Brent and Harrow is taking up the issue of loss of trees through developments.

Harrow Green Party is standing against the Kodak site developers planning application to Harrow Council, requesting the removal of 26 existing trees along Harrow View Road.  The 26 trees proposed for removal are mature, well established trees (some 80 years plus), from a wide range of different tree groups, including Flowering Cherry, Norway Maple Crimson King, Apple, Common Lime, Silver Birch & Cherry Laurel.   A number of these trees are also protected by Tree Protection Orders (TPOs), which should mean they are legally protected from cutting down, topping, lopping, uprooting, wilful damage or destruction.  In addition, the developers are requesting clearance of several areas of self-set trees & heavy pruning of a number of other well-established trees. 


On what is already a very busy, overdeveloped and congested road leading into Harrow, Harrow Council should be doing everything it can to preserve the remaining trees we have so we do not end up with an ever more polluted, concrete corridor.  These are mature trees with a rich and complex ecosystem, something that cannot just be replaced by planting new trees.  Trees bring huge environmental benefits to every urban area, including, improving air quality, helping support people's health and mental wellbeing and providing an important habitat for wildlife. 

Emma Wallace, Green Party candidate for Brent & Harrow GLA candidate says, 

Harrow Council declared a climate emergency in the summer of 2019 and has committed to protecting Harrow's environment and its trees in its Climate Change Strategy 2019-2024.  It would be a betrayal of these commitments and extremely short sighted of Harrow Council to remove these precious, mature trees.  Harrow Council must reject this application.

Since Harrow Green Party highlighted this planning application, there has been an overwhelming response, with over 300 objections now submitted.  You can read every one of the 300+ objections and the reasons people have given as to why these trees must not be removed, under 'Documents' on the Planning Application

Please add your objection to the application on the Harrow Council site, here.

Sunday 2 August 2020

Mutual Aid network in Kilburn comes to the aid of a tree scheduled for removal - and saves it!

Guest post by Dan Judelson

Local councils removing trees agains the wishes of residents is a hot button issue. Sheffield has doubtlessly been the worst example of this  LINK  but here in Brent plans to remove trees saw produced a well organised and eloquent defence of mature trees and opposition to their removal in Furness Road. The result was a commitment from the council to fashion a new approach with removal being a last resort LINK .

So when notices appeared last Friday (24th) on trees at either end of Algernon Road, Kilburn, warning that one was scheduled for removal the following Monday, it became a small scale test of this new policy. The good news is that thanks to local residents quickly raising the alarm, along with fast responses from local Brent councillors and officers alike, the decision has been reversed and the tree saved. How it happened is at least as important as the fact that it did happen.
(Photo courtesy Sophie Capel)

Like many other areas, Kilburn has set up a number of mutual aid groups, at both ward and hyper local street level. While the intention was to support neighbours in need during the lockdown to counter the Covid pandemic, it has of necessity meant that people not necessarily in direct contact with one another before now have the ability to communicate quickly when issues come up.

This is exactly what happened in this case. WhatsApp messages and tweets went out on Friday evening. Emails were sent to local councillors and officers that evening and over the weekend, protesting that the tree was not "dead” as the signs claimed. One councillor, Faduma Hassan, asked for her email address to be circulated so that residents could contact her and she could show the strength of opposition to the plans and contacted the lead member for environment. Others contacted residents in nearby streets - put in touch via the street level groups - who had some experience of dealing with the council over tree preservation. 

Monday morning rolled around and when one of the residents went to talk to the contractors who had arrived, they discovered that the council had indeed changed the work order. The trees at one end were to be pruned and a stay of execution of two weeks place on the tree scheduled for removal. Further good news came the following day, with an email from the council tree officer. Gary Rimmer said they now thought that the tree could be saved and would be pollarded, not removed. He included a welcome apology for the lack of notice too.

So this was a great result, with Brent being pushed to re-examine their plans and change them, in less than 48 hours. 

It would not have happened but for the ability to circulate information so fast, without excellent and timely responses from Councillor Hassan and Gary Rimmer, taking residents concerns seriously - and perhaps being aware of the pressure from previous incidents, thank you Furness Road campaigners and Harlesden Area Action for acting so fast back in November 2019. It’s also worth noting that in that instance too, the local councillor, Jumbo Chan was quick to back residents concerns LINK .

There are two concerns remaining, however. A new housing development, at the other end of Algernon Road is nearing completion. These photos show how many trees were removed to make way for it:
 
(Photos courtesy Stuart Fry)

When the building is completed, Brent needs to be held to its commitment to replace the lost trees with ones on the same spot or, in this case, nearby. Brent needs to acknowledge that replacing a mature tree, wide canopy and all, with a young sapling, is not really replacing anything at all. See LINK

Brent declared, rightly, a climate emergency. We need to make sure their actions on this are as serious as their warm words. It may well be that local mutual aid groups, set up to support isolated neighbours needing shopping and having prescriptions filled have a longer term role in the maintenance of local democracy, too.