“Climb Parliament Hill, New Addington Hills, Honor Oak Park or any other of London’s great viewpoints in the summer and you can see why. There are nearly as many trees as people in London and together they cover 21 per cent of its area. Compare that to the sparseness of much of the countryside”
I do wonder if Lewisham Council understands the contribution trees make to our wellbeing in so many ways. They seem to like spending money on pollarding them to within an inch of their life or until they are completely deformed. Going along Brownhill Road from Catford today the once beautiful trees looked terrible and barely had any leaves at all.
I agree pollarding does make the trees look awful. But there are advantages to this like helping the trees live longer.
Well maybe you are right but what is the point of extending the life of a tree if looks grotesque? I think the trees in Brownhill Road are London Plane trees, majestic trees that are now pretty much telegraph poles with a few tiny clusters of leaves at the end of one or two branches and in some cases no leaves at all. No leaves means no cleansing of the air which is something Brownhill Road needs desperately. No leaves means the area is even less attractive making the surroundings more grim. Other trees I’ve seen look like alien creatures with leaves growing all along their branches and down their trunks which then block the footpath. Sorry to go on about this but it has annoyed me since they started doing this to the trees where I live in Forest Hill about 5 years ago. They were beautiful before and now they are either dead or stunted. Maybe it has something to do with the expertise of the tree surgeons? I do think Lewisham is rather zealous in its tree management and if they continue this way there will definitely not be a forest in this part of London.