Brush and tree cutting?

swanseamale47

swanseamale47

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wayne clarke
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As I mentioned in the kingfisher thread there seems to be a rash of cutting back hedges and brush areas near me, even places you'd think councils would ignore. Now I see they are cutting trees down all over the place, even a roundabout thats had trees for decades. This cant just be tidying up, they are wiping out a fair bit of wildlife habitat.
Is this a knee jerk reaction to the Cardiff car crash, or something else?
Any ideas?
 
Probably getting as much done as they can before the nesting season starts (although that is throughout March to August so i'd suggest they could be working outside of the law if they are cutting hedges now, especially if there are any bird nests in those hedges).
 
It does sound like liability risk minimising in south Wales; round here (and Plymouth by the sound of it) it's developers playing havoc with very old trees and ignoring protection orders, to make life easier for themselves.
 
Ed Sutton said:
Local authorities, woodland, golf courses and private householders are not subject to the same restrictions as farmers.
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That article dates from 2017 and a lot has changed over the last 6 years or so.

Safety issues have become much more important for statutory authorities at all levels and they will do as much preemptive work as possible as early as possible.
 
Certainly a lot of brush cutting happening here, along the rivers is where I've noticed it. Somebody has been through one stretch here with a vengeance.
 
I'm not sure if this kind of tree-felling operation is what the discussion is about but it's caused uproar in Plymouth.The fact it was carried out at night suggests the council knew it would be stopped by court order if residents objected and went that route. The council leader or official who authorised it has since resigned. Sadly, only 16 trees were left by the time the objectors got a late night injunction . I also recall that a similar action took place in the north of England was taken by the council before anyone could get it stopped I found it.

Plymouth: https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/plymouth-mourns-armada-way-trees-8254495

Sheffield: https://www.itv.com/news/calendar/2...ld-council-misled-public-in-tree-felling-saga
 
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JohnC6 said:
The fact it was carried out at night suggests the council knew it would be stopped by court order if residents objected and went that route.
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I don't think that's a valid claim. The council chairman was on Radio 4 this morning and he said the night cutting was necessary due to access problems during daytime. Knowing the area well, I think that's a valid reason for night work.

Armada Way and Royal Parade are basic 1960s rebuilds, utilitarian and for the most part unlovely and unloved. What I've seen of the plans suggest that the new centre will be a worthwhile improvement,
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
I don't think that's a valid claim. The council chairman was on Radio 4 this morning and he said the night cutting was necessary due to access problems during daytime. Knowing the area well, I think that's a valid reason for night work.

Armada Way and Royal Parade are basic 1960s rebuilds, utilitarian and for the most part unlovely and unloved. What I've seen of the plans suggest that the new centre will be a worthwhile improvement,
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Going by the news photos only, I think it would have been better to leave the trees and demolish the buildings!
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
If it were a choice, I'd agree with you. :naughty:

The plan. allegedly, is to replace some of the buildings as well. This page has an overview: https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/learn-about-armada-way-regeneration-plans
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Yes. But in my experience, locally, claims of “increasing biodiversity” are usually misplaced. In one case by a local organisation it was an area that was cleared and replanted with Buddleias etc and claimed to be a haven for butterflies but of course they’d removed all the food plants of the caterpillars. The other was by SUSTRANS (the cycle path people) which claimed to be removing ’unsightly scrub’ (not on the cycle path in a railway cutting but above it) which not only reduced the wildflower (cowslips etc) popuation but also made it impassable once the light was let in and the nettles etc took over.

In the Plymouth and Shefield cases they promise to plant new trees but a young tree doesn’t replace a 100 year old one, at least not for 99 years. :( And of course they also usually don’t look after the young trees etc etc.
 
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AndrewFlannigan said:
I don't think that's a valid claim. The council chairman was on Radio 4 this morning and he said the night cutting was necessary due to access problems during daytime. Knowing the area well, I think that's a valid reason for night work.

Armada Way and Royal Parade are basic 1960s rebuilds, utilitarian and for the most part unlovely and unloved. What I've seen of the plans suggest that the new centre will be a worthwhile improvement,
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On first reading of your post I thought,"fair enough" then after a wee think I wondered if the council had given public notice or, more to the point, is it lawfully-required to do so ? The trees musn't have been in a 'conservation area' or had a 'Protection Order' in place. After some Googling I can't find the answer because every result concerns private individuals who want to fell a tree on their land and they must, by law, inform the LA Planning Dept prior to taking any trees down. There have been some high profile incidents where someone has felled trees on their land without authority from the LA Planning Dept. There's no doubt that in some cases people will go ahead knowing they wouldn't get permission and take the consequences..usually just a fine, especially if it's to clear space for building(s) on their property.
 
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JohnC6 said:
On first reading of your post I thought,"fair enough" then after a wee think I wondered if the council had given public notice or, more to the point, is it lawfully-required to do so ? The trees musn't have been in a 'conservation area' or had a 'Protection Order' in place. After some Googling I can't find the answer because every result concerns private individuals who want to fell a tree on their land and they must, by law, inform the LA Planning Dept prior to taking any trees down. There have been some high profile incidents where someone has felled trees on their land without authority from the LA Planning Dept. There's no dolubt that in some cases people will go ahead knowing they wouldn't get permission and take the consequences..usually just a fine, especially if it's to clear space for building(s) on their property.
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Exactly, the council is both perpetrator and policeman in these cases and effectively above the law. It’s a fault in legislation The Sheffield case showed that.
 
Jannyfox said:
A lot of trees are being cut down because of ash dieback. They can't take the risk of possibly diseased trees falling into roads.
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They have had to do a lot here, mostly self sown absurdly dense Ash which has grown up on ungrazed common land.
It will actually be excellent to let light in these areas which I remember in the 60s being thick with cowslips, orchids and primroses but have been shaded out almost completely for 20 years or more.
 
AndrewFlannigan said:
I don't think that's a valid claim. The council chairman was on Radio 4 this morning and he said the night cutting was necessary due to access problems during daytime. Knowing the area well, I think that's a valid reason for night work.

Armada Way and Royal Parade are basic 1960s rebuilds, utilitarian and for the most part unlovely and unloved. What I've seen of the plans suggest that the new centre will be a worthwhile improvement,
Click to expand...
They looked like mainly sycamore from the shots I saw - not a lot of value to wildlife or anything else. The area could be far better but it was a shame to remove them all.
 
4wd said:
They looked like mainly sycamore from the shots I saw - not a lot of value to wildlife or anything else. The area could be far better but it was a shame to remove them all.
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I’m always a bit puzzled by this, plenty of sycamores round here (and I have a large mature one in the garden) and they seem to teem with life.

They are a nuisance to gardeners (like Cherry too) because they self sow so easily and I suspect the “no wildlife” is a bit of an excuse.

Sycamore seems to be the only tree capable of growing in some places in the Dales.
 
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