Dear Councillors.

Open letter to Councillors Bradshaw and Walker regarding Street Trees

From your letter to the Bristol Evening Post on 23rd April we think you remain unaware of the crisis facing Bristol’s Street Trees and the dramatic loss of Bristol's urban tree canopy, so we have responded point-by-point to your comments (which we have put in italics) below. We have put this letter on www.BristolStreetTrees.org

As a group, we have come up with a draft street tree strategy. But we have not received any feedback on our specific suggestions from Bristol City Council and remain concerned that likewise it is not even aware that there is a problem regarding the loss of street trees. In addition to problems such as the failure to replant, take advantages of new opportunities to plant and the alienation of the local community, there is a gradual shift in the species of tree chosen towards gardenesque trees that will never become large.

Our response to your comments now follows:

(Councillors’ Soapbox Article in italic on white)

(Bristol Street Trees comments in bold)

“Further to comments by the Bristol Street Trees Group in the Post last week, we would like to reassure readers that the city council takes the maintenance and management of trees in Bristol very seriously indeed.”

1. We are glad to hear that you are taking the issue seriously. It is unfortunate that one of you (Councillor Walker) didn’t reply to our letter of 8th January 2008 (or take on board the points we had made) where we complained about the misleading nature of a poster. The bill board advertisement, launched by yourself, implied that it was possible to plant street trees in Bristol with funding from the public. Spin is no substitute for getting the job done, so rather than putting up posters which make unsubstantiated claims that could be challenged through the Advertising Standards Authority, we felt that a better solution would simply be to get the job done and work with groups to plant street trees in new locations. We have appended our 8th January letter.
   

2. 
   

3. It is also unfortunate that Councillor Walker left the Bristol Parks Forum meeting last August early and wasn’t able to stay to hear our presentation on street trees. We would of course have been happy to present our concerns to her at her convenience some other time. This offer remains open to both councilors and we also hope that we can correct below some of the misconceptions that remain as a result.
   

4. 
   

“We work with community groups across the city and with national organisations - such as Trees for Cities - to identify opportunities for appropriate tree-planting schemes and planted some 554 trees in public spaces, including on the highway, during the winter tree planting season that has just ended.”

1. In four lines of text here, we find a very large number of concerns. Nowhere does the paragraph mention street trees, so at a stretch, although misleading, one could argue that most of it is not untrue.
   

1. “We work with community groups across the city”
   

1. There are numerous examples where Bristol City Council’s failure to consult before the removal of individual trees has antagonised local community groups and is contrary to societal norms and established law. To quote from a complaint regarding the removal of some poplars in Mina Road (downloaded from the Bristol Parks Forum web site on 27 April 2008), “In short, there is a perception around Bristol that the Tree officers are arrogant vandals intent on felling mature trees to save money on maintenance, and living in fear of insurance claims. While I'm sure this isn't the case, this example does nothing to dispel this impression”.
   

2. 
   

3. In several cases where decisions to remove trees have been questioned, rather than debate the possible options for managed retention, the matter has been resolved by pre-emptive removal of the trees in question followed by post facto justification. This is a sure-fire way of alienating the very people who care most about trees and under a more positive regime would be the council’s most ardent supporters.
   

4. 
   

5. We have urged unsuccessfully for over a year that there should be consultation prior to tree removal, through a proper process. In many instances, when problems are found, there are options other than felling which could be explored through discussion with the local community rather than imposition of arbitrary decisions by council staff who do not even live there.
   

1. “…and with national organisations - such as Trees for Cities”
   

1. The Bristol section of the Trees for Cities Web site http://www.treesforcities.org/page.php?id=65 mentions the excellent planting projects, funded by HSBC in parks but it does not mention street trees. Indeed, when we contacted the Bristol representative of Trees for Cities she told us that her organisation had no street tree planting projects outside London. We believe it is disingenuous to imply, either in billboard advertisements, or in your letter above that Street Tree planting is now possible in partnership with Trees for Cities.
   

1. “…to identify opportunities for appropriate tree-planting”
   

2. 
   Quite simply, it is not at present possible for local groups or national groups to fund the planting of street trees in new locations. We know, because we have tried for some three years to plant two street trees in new locations in Redland. We remain hopeful.
   

1. “…and planted some 554 trees in public spaces, including on the highway”
   

1. And planting a tree in a park is easy - putting one back in a street is far more difficult, which is why it doesn't happen very much. Of the 554 trees you mention have been planted, we doubt that more than 10% are Street Trees?
   

“Our programme for the next few years already aims to replace or newly plant at least 600 trees a year and later this year we plan to launch a new scheme to attract commercial sponsorship to help support additional street tree planting.”

1. 
   

2. At last, a mention of street trees but only in reference to the last clause of the second part of the sentence and consists of a vague promise of the kind we have heard before. We have no idea whether any, or many of the 600 trees a year will be planted on streets.
   
   

“The council has recently invested an extra £100,000 in its maintenance budget for managing the 10,000 street trees on the highway, bringing the total budget for the care of our city's highway trees to almost £300,000.”

1. Sadly, with as few as 50 new street trees planted this year, “maintenance” seems to be an Orwellian term for felling. We are becoming concerned that budget increases are simply being diverted towards removing still more trees.
   

2. 
   

“Through our ambitious Parks and Green Spaces Programme we also aim to unlock almost £100 million over the next 20 years to improve parks and green spaces - and this will include resources for the maintenance and replacement of many of the trees that make Bristol one of the greenest and most attractive cities in the UK.”

1. Well, no specific mention of street trees, so it is hard to comment. As we said earlier, planting a tree in a park is easy - putting one back in a street is far more difficult, which is why it doesn't happen very much.
   

1. Regarding Street Trees, the green and pleasant parts of this city are relatively small and are largely there thanks to the foresight of the Victorians and clearly not the legacy of the present city council. Many of these are sadly being whittled away as one by one they are identified as 'a risk' of some sort with no evidence of planned replacement or succession planting (except in Queen Square). For example, the recent highway 'improvements' at the bottom of Jacobs Well Road could surely have included some new plane trees in the event that the existing ones might need to be removed in 50 years time.
   

1. We think you are not aware of the great swathes of housing that make much of Bristol one of the most unattractive and least green cities in the UK.
   
   

“Wherever new developments may affect trees, we put conditions on planning permissions to ensure developers replace them - and, where appropriate, will seek investment in landscaping, inluding planting new trees, as part of any planning agreement.”

1. 
   

2. Such agreements have so far resulted in relatively few street trees being planted (we would be interested to know whether the figure for Bristol is known by yourselves). However, regarding other trees, while you correctly say that planning conditions ensure that developers plant new trees these are only secured for five years after completion. For example, there are many empty tree pits in retail parks and supermarket car parks across the city (and indeed the country as a whole) where trees have evidently been removed in favour of CCTV camera sight lines. Planning powers are clearly not robust enough to stand up to the demands of 'secure by design', CCTV camera requirements and fears of litigation in terms of trip hazards and subsidence claims. While many of the large trees that grace this city are gradually being lost (i.e. managed), much of the newly planted stock seems to have little chance of survival. Unless the city council ensures that lost trees are replaced and that all new development is balanced by an appropriate volume of tree canopy, planted on or off-site, Bristol cannot legitimately apply to become the Green Capital.
   
   

3. Yours sincerely,
   

4. 
   

5. 
   

6. Vassili Papastavrou
   

7. 
   

Enc Letter to Councillor Walker 9th January 2008.

Councillor Rosalie Walker

Bristol City Council

Council House,

College Green,

Bristol BS1 5TR

8th January 2008

Dear Councillor Walker

Billboard advertisement encouraging the planting of street trees

I am writing regarding the above bill board advertisement, which you launched on 7th November 2007. We very much like the advertisement and think the imagery is clever. However, we feel that it gives the misleading impression that it is possible to sponsor a street tree in Bristol through the London-based organisation Trees for Cities. The images are definitely streetscape images, not images of a city park which is what has drawn us to this conclusion.

Bristol Street Trees is a local organisation which was set up to address the crisis regarding street trees in our city. For more information see www.bristolstreettrees.org I had the opportunity to address the Parks Forum which we both attended last August on the subject of Street Trees. However, by that time you had left the meeting.

For some three years we have tried to get street trees planted in new locations but have so far not succeeded in getting a tree planted at this stage, though that we feel now that we are close to achieving this goal now that the issue has received broad attention. One location is on a pavement build-out and is straightforward and the second is a landmark tree in the middle of Redland Road Roundabout. We have gone round in circles for some years. We received permission eventually in January 2007 and then had permission withdrawn soon after. The services searches were conducted but then ran out due to elapse of a considerable period of time. There has been confusion as to which contractors could actually dig holes or plant trees. Eventually we engaged the support of our MP and the state of play at the time of writing is that we now have the support of Bristol Parks which has now taken on The Engineering Consultancy to design the holes in which the trees will be planted and identify suitable contractors to dig these holes.

We do appreciate the efforts by Bristol Parks subsequent to the Scrutiny Commission meeting to set up a Street Tree Forum, which was one of our two main suggestions. We have high hopes that the many problems involved in planting street trees, briefly mentioned above will somehow be resolved through the Forum. In addition we appreciate the enthusiasm of Peter Wilkinson in particular and his efforts to make progress now.

We feel that the bill board advertisement is misleading for two reasons. Firstly, the Bristol contact listed for Trees For Cities informed us at the time of the press launch that their organisation does not have plans to plant street trees outside London and does not have plans to do this in Bristol (see attached email). Secondly, there is at present no simple procedure for actually planting a street tree in a new location as we have mentioned above. In short, we are not aware of anyone in the last couple of years who has managed to sponsor a street tree in Bristol and get it planted.

We did raise these issues with Peter Wilkinson and with Trees for Cities last November but have not as yet received a satisfactory response hence the reason we have written to you. We would therefore be grateful to receive your confirmation that the advertisement will not be used again until these problems have been sorted out.

Yours sincerely,

Vassili Papastavrou

www.bristolstreettrees.org