sdrs

There are a few things I omitted to clarify in my initial response to Eleanor and Stone Brownie's posts. First, re the damage to the garden wall which prompted the owners of the property behind the tree to call for its felling. Let's be clear, we are talking about a single crack to the garden wall, not damage to the property itself, which is set well back from the wall, behind a garden and driveway. No one in favour of retaining the tree is suggesting that the Council doesn't have a duty to repair/replace the cracked wall or to extend the pavement around the tree to improve access for buggy and wheelchair. But it is also established in English law, in the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 section 198 that trees have value as a public amenity and therefore local planning authorities are given a duty to protect trees in the public interest. Although the legislation itself does not specify how amenity is to be assessed, CAVAT has been designed (and adopted by local authorities) specifically as an asset management tool for trees that are publicly owned or of public importance. It expresses the value of publicly owned trees in monetary terms, in a way that is directly related to the quantum of public benefits that each particular tree provides. CAVAT (Capital Asset Value for Amenity Trees) works by calculating a unit value for each square centimetre of tree stem and then adjusting this to reflect the degree of benefit that the tree provides to the local community. I am busily working out the CAVAT value of the tree with the illegally served felling notice on it at the top of Grove Lane and am being advised in this by John Welton, a distinguished tree surgeon and Member of the Arboricultural Association as well as the International Society of Arboriculture. It is already clear from my research and discussions with him that the tree (which as John has pointed out provides as part of the mature canopy on Grove Lane a much needed cooling effect and shade for children on their way to Dog Kennel Hill School in summer as well as visual pleasure to all who pass down Grove Lane on their way to work or to school every day) has an extremely high CAVAT value, based on its location as well as its great size and species (London plane being known for their extraordinary resilience and longevity in urban settings). Using a CAVAT banding tablefor 2008, the tree would have a monetary value as a publicly owned asset of ?57,653 and ?144,133. It is almost certainly worth more now and I will endeavour to establish an up to date figure for its worth by tomorrow and post it but clearly the Council, appointed to protect the tree in the absence of a Tree Preservation Order, has no right to destroy a public asset worth this much to the community. The cost to the Council of altering the footpath to improve pedestrianaccess and of fixing the wall behind the tree would be a tiny fraction of what the tree is worth. To go ahead with the felling would be to rob not just residents of Grove Lane but all who live and work in the vicinity of an irreplaceable public asset.

Thank you! Every email counts and we are running out of time. But please make sure your emails all go to Councillor Peter John because - final confirmation if any were needed of The Council's contempt for the public on this issue - Mr Erasmus is given as the only Council contact on the notice to fell the tree (assuming you are tall enough and/or determined enough to read it) yet his email is switched to an automated Out of Office AutoReply stating: "I'm out of the office and will be back on 21 May 2014. Your email is not being forwarded." 21st May is of course the day AFTER the proposed felling... If this is Southwark's idea of a joke, nobody's laughing. My eldest daughter and I took a measurement of the tree's circumference this afternoon and found it to be over 240cm. This means the likely diameter is 76-77cm. According to a study entitled 'The Effects of Urban Trees on Air Quality' conducted by David J. Novak in New York, "Large, healthy trees greater than 77cm in diameter remove 70 times more air pollution annually than small, healthy trees less than 8cm in diameter... Large trees have the greatest per tree effects."

Hi there, my family and I live directly opposite the tree with the notice on it. I was so heartened to read your post Eleanor and to know that it is not just residents of Grove Lane who regard these magnificent old plane trees as community assets, enhancing the character of the neighbourhood and people's daily experience of it as well as serving a vital function in absorbing pollutants from the atmosphere along what is, as you point out, an incredibly busy road and bus route (close to a local primary school). It is our view, shared by many fellow residents along Grove Lane, that the so-called consultation has been improperly carried out, too many residents' questions have remained unanswered by the Tree Officer appointed to handle consultation - that stone brownie wasn't consulted when he lives only twenty metres from the tree says it all. Stone brownie I would strongly urge you to email Peter John our local Councillor (I wouldn't bother with anyone else) this weekend, informing him that you consider yourself not to have been consulted re the tree outside 201 Grove Lane and that the felling proposed for Tuesday should be halted until a consultation has been properly conducted. We will emailing Peter John along these lines as well as Ernst Erasmus whose name is given on the notification of felling sign, located so high on the tree and facing the street, placed as though deliberately to avoid notice. Our neighbours have taken photographs and are emailing Both Ernst Erasmus and Peter John (ultimately the buck stops with him and no one else at the Council seems to give a monkey's about preserving our green canopy) to notify them that the notice to fell has been illegally served. It was put up some time yesterday Friday with the notification date for felling given as Tuesday 20th - that is barely 4 days and in fact barely two working days, when residents were told in writing there would be five days notice (and apparently some residents had no idea thre was a consultation!) The notice is clearly invalid having been placed so high that you practically need a step-ladder to read it, with no reason given on it for the felling and not giving the requisite five days notice. These trees are community assets - I am over the weekend going to bone up on CAVAT which is the community value of trees. The tree with the notice on it (and by the way the one next to it, closest to the school is also under threat of felling and another resident is angling to get a third felled, also at the Dog kennel Hill end of Grove Lane) is actually worth well in excess of what it would cost the Council to bring the pavement out around the tree to accommodate it (ie worth well over ?20,000) Ironically these trees have no Tree Preservation Order on them because it is considered that they will always be protected by the Council... We have to hold Southwark to account and demand that community assets of the ecological and environmental importance of these trees be properly valued (I will be demanding to know whether the Council has conducted a CAVAT survey of the avenue of ancient plane trees lining grove Lane) and protected and that the views of all stakeholders be taken into account. The cost of re-building the wall behind the tree has been estimated by a builder neighbour as under ?3,500. The parking issue is nonsense - we have ample parking on Grove Lane, we have residents' parking (controlled zone L) and to bring the pavement out around the tree to improve pedestrian access (which is clearly necessary) would only necessitate the suppression of a few spaces. A few spaces can easily be spared as only about half the residents' spaces are ever occupied. To quote from Southwark's own Tree Management Strategy: "Trees play a crucial role in mitigating climate change. Over a year a mature tree removes about 22kg of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Trees are essential for improving air quality. Leaves absorb air pollutants such as ozone, carbon monoxide, and sulphur dioxide. Dust and other particulates are collected by leaves and washed to the ground by rain, rather than remaining in the air." No replacement planting could compete with the ability of these giants to mop up pollutants from one of the busiest thoroughfares in Southwark. Please don't wait - please email [email protected] this weekend, before it's too late! And don't forget [email protected] whose name and email are given on the notification to fell. You won't be able to reach him on the phone - I tried! Finally, if anyone would care to join me I am thinking of tying myself to the tree on Tuesday morning.. I will certainly be there and hope that others will want to join me, from 8/8.30am. Our neighbour Jenny Eclair is right behind us if we need some celebrity whammy to stop this needless felling and we are thinking of contacting BBC LOndon/Southwark News to bring this matter to their attention.