Beautiful tree wrecked in Ulverscroft Road

[Sue]

A beautiful mature Rowan tree (Mountain Ash) in Ulverscroft Road has had all its branches hacked off and just left on the pavement.

It was the last tree in the road on the even-numbered side, at the Whateley Road end.

When I saw it like this yesterday, I assumed that the council had done it for some reason. However I just passed it as a council team were collecting the branches, and apparently the council did not do it, and the enforcement team is "investigating".

This was not just random vandalism by some drunken person pulling off a low lying branch. Somebody must have deliberately got a ladder and sawed every branch off.

To whoever you are - shame on you. The tree cannot be saved.

However the council will plant another tree, so if you didn't want a tree there - too bad.

[Otta]

That's really shit. I hate to see trees come down unnecessarily.

[DulwichFox]

There is extensive work going on at the corner house and they are digging down to some considerable depth.

Several skips worth already gone.

Considering the proximity of the tree to the house, I suspect the tree has undermined the buildings foundations

and needs to be removed..

DulwichFox

[James Barber]

Yesterday I asked council officers to investigate and chased first thing tomorrow.

[KidKruger]

WTF do the council plant tress 4 feet form the external wall of a house, it's basically criminal damage by stealth.

Finally got rid of the 45ft tree which was 6ft from front of my house, the bastad - only goo dthing about that tree was the tonne of wood I've got seasoning for year after next's Xmas.

[BrandNewGuy]

We have a similar problem, KK. A self-seeded sycamore on council property ten feet from our house has caused structural damage. The council refuses to cut it down but are happy to accept liability to pay to remedy any further damage. Insanity. We're going to make one last request for them to remove it... If that doesn't work, I'll be out with the chainsaw ;-)

[Sue]

The thing is, in the case of the Ulverscroft Road tree, it is not right for people to take things into their own hands in this way.

If it was undermining the foundations in some way they should have contacted the council.

Quite apart from the main issue, they didn't even bother to remove the branches, just left them cluttering up the pavement and some of the road.

[DulwichFox]

Sue Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> The thing is, in the case of the Ulverscroft Road

> tree, it is not right for people to take things

> into their own hands in this way.

>

> If it was undermining the foundations in some way

> they should have contacted the council.

>

> Quite apart from the main issue, they didn't even

> bother to remove the branches, just left them

> cluttering up the pavement and some of the road.

How do you know they did not contact the council and/or it was cut down by contractors

on behalf of the council. ???

Foxy

[Sue]

DulwichFox Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

>

> How do you know they did not contact the council

> and/or it was cut down by contractors

> on behalf of the council. ???

>

Because as I said above, I have spoken to the council people who came to remove the branches.

They are investigating who cut the tree down. It was not the council and it was not contractors on the council's behalf.

[Otta]

If they just cut away the branches, it doesn't sound like it was anything to do with the roots and foundations of a building.

[Nigello]

Whether or not the tree was right to be there, to destroy it - and to leave the remnants blocking the street - is not acceptable. I hope the person will be caught and fined.

[Sue]

Otta Wrote:

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> If they just cut away the branches, it doesn't

> sound like it was anything to do with the roots

> and foundations of a building.

Obviously I have no idea, but possibly they were disturbed before they could cut down the trunk - or didn't have sufficiently strong tools to do it.

In some cases, removing a mature tree can actually cause more damage to a building than leaving it there, unless you know what you are doing.

A quick google brought up this (I'm doing a Dulwich Fox now :)) ):

"Heave can be caused by the removal of trees or severe pruning of mature trees which can allow clay soils to recover their moisture content which results in the ground swelling and causing uplift or heave. Heave is also seasonal and the extent of heave can vary throughout the year. Heave can cause serious damage to properties"

http://info.westberks.gov.uk/CHttpHandler.ashx?id=35300&p=0

IF it was done by the owners of an adjacent house, or people working for them, they may have shot themselves in the foot.

Edited to add the bold

[KidKruger]

BNG - I have a trailer now so would like the wood if you have no other takers.

These feckin trees are useful after all.

[traveler2]

I'm with KK on this one. A tree of that size has no business being so near to a property in an area susceptible to subsidence although it does not justify leaving the branches around.

[goosey-goosey]

I wish someone would carry out a similar stealth hatchet job on the runty, sad excuse of a tree in the middle of Goose Green (near the end of the path). It's really out of place there. I heard the school that planted it last winter made a mistake - apparently it's not the type or size of tree agreed with the Council. Isn't the best thing to do with mistakes to rectify them?

[yummumbums]

I'm sad about this tree too. I didn't think it looked large enough to cause any damage.

[JohnL]

goosey-goosey Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> I wish someone would carry out a similar stealth

> hatchet job on the runty, sad excuse of a tree in

> the middle of Goose Green (near the end of the

> path). It's really out of place there. I heard the

> school that planted it last winter made a mistake

> - apparently it's not the type or size of tree

> agreed with the Council. Isn't the best thing to

> do with mistakes to rectify them?

Trees do take time

I planted a horse chestnut in Swansea at 7 - It still looks

youthful 40 years later :)

[intexasatthe moment]

I'm surprised by the comments on this thread ,the area has clay soil and many of the little Victorian terraced houses are now very elderly and insubstantially built in the first place .

Subsidence ( which is not after all equal to the Black Death )will happen ,no need to criminalising every root and branch in the vicinity .

And yes - heave ....

[DulwichFox]

I've had a closer look..

The tree is leaning over the road..

Now I'm not a big bloke, but I can move / rock the tree with one hand with very little effort.

..and see the base of the tree an earth moving.

Sue says the tree is a Rowan.. Well the Rowan doe have a shallow root system so unlikely to do

much structural damage to buildings..

... but presumably as branches grow and with heavy leaf mass (for want of a better term)

it might become top heavy ?? and with a shallow root system could be unstable in high winds.

Like I say I can move it.

does not solve the question who has done this and what's to be done with the trunk.

DulwichFox

[DulwichFox]

Here is the said Tree...

Foxy

[Sue]

yummumbums Wrote:

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> I'm sad about this tree too. I didn't think it

> looked large enough to cause any damage.

Nor me.

They're quite often planted as street trees.

[Sue]

DulwichFox Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Like I say I can move it.

>

Obviously I have no idea, but I imagine you can probably move it because either the person/people who cut the branches off or the council workers who came to pick up the branches have tried to remove the trunk by rocking it.

That's what I would have done.

And I imagine they couldn't, although they managed to loosen it which is why it moves, so will have to remove it by some other method.

[Peckhamgatecrasher]

With my deerstalker firmly in place, I would note who regularly parks there. It is the time of year when bird shit is stained red - maybe someone is precious about their car.

[phobic3000]

The owner of a car thing is plausible. About the council saying it wasn't them though... I have a mate who was getting an extension to the back / side of his house and a week before the work was due to start the neighbours had a load of scaffolding put up, which was a problem for his builders. He asked his neighbours and they said it was put there and arranged by the council because their house (the neighbours) was council owned and needed repointing. Problem was when he phoned the council to find out how long it would be there they said they had no record of the job. The point of this story is although the council arranged a job, they couldn't confirm it because at the time of contacting them this information was lost in the system. So even if the council deny it, it may possibly still be them, although looking at the photos probably not as they would surely not just left all the branches on the roadside.

[Sue]

I can't see that the council would have any possible reason to cut all the branches off a tree, leave the trunk behind, leave the branches lying all over the pavement and road for at least a day, deny that they had done it, but then send in their enforcement team to find out who had !