23 May 2022
Harrow has seen an ongoing decline in the number of street trees in the borough, with tree loss and felling occurring for a range of reasons including, neglect, disease and the storms that occurred earlier in the year. The Council has made attempts to plant new street trees in a number of areas, most recently seeing North Harrow high street receive a number of young trees, thanks to the North Harrow High Street Fund.
Harrow Council was also the first Council in the UK to sign up to the ‘Trees for Streets’ sponsorship scheme, where residents can sponsor a tree for £195 (watering the tree themselves) or £295 and the Council will water the tree. The shifting of tree planting and maintenance to local taxpayers is not sustainable, especially in light of the cost-of-living crisis. The use of one-off, high street funding or grants is also not a comprehensive or sustainable policy and means that Harrow’s street tree planting is patchy and disjointed across the borough, with some areas receiving replacement trees, whilst others going without.
Our existing street trees are also not being well looked after by Harrow Council, often facing heavy-handed pruning and pollarding. Pollarding should generally only be carried out when trees are dormant during the winter months or very early spring, not once the tree is in full bloom. Despite this, the Council’s tree contractors ‘Gristwood and Toms’ have been heavily pruning streets trees in full bloom this May along Rayners Lane shop parade and in West Harrow.
This is not only bad for the trees, with severe pollarding of certain trees potentially weakening and making them vulnerable to disease, and subsequently killing them. It is also a disaster for wildlife, with insects losing their home amongst the now removed leaves and birds losing their nests. Through the removal of tree branches and foliage, birds lose both their home and protection. The fact that we are now in the middle of bird nesting season mean that the tree contractors may actually be breaching wildlife protection laws if there were birds’ nests in use in the trees. Questions need to be asked as to whether the tree contractors carried out the required survey to ensure they were not disturbing any birds nesting before carrying out the tree pollarding this May?
There is also the question as to why such heavy pollarding on these mature street trees is needed at all? Our cash strapped Council is wasting funds paying contractors to destroy local wildlife habitats found in trees, whilst removing trees that can help in the batlle against climate change, from cleaning our polluted air, to cooling our hot, urban streets during the summer months.
Local environmental campaigner Dave Degen, says: "At a time when people are facing tight budgets and having to make cuts in the wake of spiralling inflation, the only cutbacks Harrow Council is making - to trees, lawns and hedgerows - are actually costing council tax-payers money! Is hiring lackies to hack trees in full leaf down to the trunk, or blow leaves around with polluting petrol-powered equipment really the best way Harrow can think of to blow public funds? Put the money into planting trees - not pruning them!"
Harrow Green Party are calling on the Council to immediately stop any tree pollarding during the summer months and nesting season, whilst reviewing its wider tree maintenance policies, taking a much more nuanced and sympathetic approach to caring for our remaining street trees. This is an opportunity for the council to support nature, whilst showing its commitment to dealing with the climate crisis.
The new, Conservative administration must take seriously the urgently need to address the climate emergency and biodiversity decline by preserving and encouraging our existing greenery.
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