Woodman, woodman, spare that tree!
Trees perform a vital role in our city, cleaning the air, capturing carbon, providing shade and shielding us from the noise of busy streets. They also soften the urban landscape, bringing a suggestion of the countryside to lift the spirits of those of us living and working in the city.
So Westminster City Council is to be applauded for its decision to consult on the future tree-planting policy for the borough and for the production of its thoughtful document on the Westminster City Council web site "Trees in the Public Realm".
The stated aims of the WCC document are:
- To promote an awareness of the value of trees in Westminster;
- To provide a practical guide to Westminster's town-scape to ensure the continuity of the positive contribution that trees make to its character;
- To promote an understanding of urban design principles to ensure that trees are planted in the right places;
- To promote an understanding of practical site considerations to ensure that trees are not planted in the wrong places;
- To promote an understanding of species selection to ensure that species appropriate to the site are planted; and
- To promote sustainable biodiversity goals and contribute to the wider sustainability and climate change agenda.
It is forthright in advocating the ecological and aesthetic benefits of city trees. So it is curious that the sections dealing with Marylebone classify it as one of the area of lowest priority for the tree-planting programme (in the Council classification "treat with caution"). Not only does this mean no further planting for most of Marylebone but also "existing street trees that are inappropriate to their town-scape context will not be succeeded, and consideration will be given to their removal. Consideration will always be given to replacing any loss, but it may not be in the same part of Westminster" (page 19).
There is a strong presumption that in this area the formal Georgian and Victorian streets should be hard and treeless, to contrast with the trees in parks and garden squares. This idealises the Marylebone urban landscape and risks denying us the benefit of future tree-planting, when we already have one of the lowest density of trees in London and some of the most polluted roads. Nor does it take account of the fact that many streets are not architecturally homogeneous (my own street is a mixture of Georgian terrace, 1970s town houses and modern offices. Curiously also, Baker Street and Gloucester Place are not included with the major traffic routes which would benefit. Both are wide enough to be included in any scheme for boulevards, and Baker Street can hardly be regarded as an unbroken line of Georgian elegance.
Much work has been done in recent years by the W1W Street Tree Planting Initiative, instigated by local resident Mark Gazaleh, to ensure that trees have a much stronger presence on the streets of eastern Marylebone. Trees have been planted on Harley Street and Upper Wimpole Street without the effect of destroying or obscuring their formal beauty. Other streets such as Great Portland Street have changed so much over the last century that there is now much more concrete and less brick. Also gone are the soft awnings of the early shopfronts which gave a human dimension to the streets.
If this was not enough, photographs from the beginning of the 20th century clearly show that there were clusters of trees at the ends of some of these streets which are no longer there, and this is surely a major consideration. Formal austere streets mixed with garden squares may work if the trees of the squares are within the sight-lines of these streets. Otherwise, the benefit has to be taken on good faith, as in the music-hall song by Edgar Bateman and George Le Brunn :
"Wiv a ladder and some glasses, You could see to 'Ackney Marshes, If it wasn't for the 'ouses in between."
We have until mid-March to comment on the tree-planting policy. If you would like to comment, please write to:
Contact:
Mr Chris Mason
Policy Manager (City Schemes)
11th Floor East
Westminster City Hall
64 Victoria Street
London SW1E 6QP
Email:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
