Plant a new Street Tree

Do you want to plant a new Street Tree? You can now register your interest in planting a tree in an existing tree pit via the Lewisham Tree Map at maps.catfordstreettrees.org.uk:

Simply find a vacant tree pit (in red on the default view), click ‘Plant a Tree Here’ and complete the simple form:

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Planting a new tree costs £240, which includes:

• A professionally cultivated sapling (approx. 4m)
• A choice of tree species
• Professional planting, incl. staking & fencing
• Insurance against failure for 2 years

For the first two year sponsors are required to water their trees.

More information on the sponsorship process can be found here & here.

What is a tree pit? Are these sites on the map already selected for planting?

The tree pits are simply the locations in the pavement where trees have been planted in the past but have been removed for one reason or another (damage, disease, etc.). (You’ll often see a space which has been filled with tarmac rather than being repaved - this is the vacant tree pit which has been covered to prevent tripping etc.)

In general all of these sites should be viable locations to plant a new street tree, with the exception of locations where a tree was recently removed due to disease.

Thanks so much for this. One of the reasons I like living here is the beautiful trees. I will look into sponsorship.

Over the last few years I’ve seen lots of street trees cut down but they never get replaced. Most recently one was chopped down on Stanstead Road next to the junction with Kilmorie Road, and also one further down Kilmorie. When I moved into my house the street was beautiful and leafy, but now it seems very bare. Street trees are so beneficial.
There were two trees cut down near to my house in 2013 but they are not showing on the map as tree pits. Could this be because the street has been repaved since, so the tree pits would have been paved over?
I would like to plant a new street tree but with the watering involved it would need to be one near to my house and there aren’t any vacant pits showing unfortunately.

Do the green dots mean live street trees? As the two that have recently been cut down near my house are marked green on your map. I will post photos.

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Here is the Stanstead Road one - on corner of Kilmorie Road. The second photo is a screen grab from Googlemaps of how it used to look before, it seems fairly healthy so not sure why it was chopped down but I am not a tree expert. The flowering cherry that was in the garden of the house on the corner has also been chopped down so that corner is looking rather bare now.

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Here is the one recently cut down on Kilmorie Road - its outside number 30 I think.
With how it used to look.

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We live on Colfe Road and you can clearly see where there used to be trees all along the street. Such a shame (both aesthetically and from a health point of view) that those trees are gone. The bigger shame is that most people have paved over their front gardens for parking and those trees cannot now be replaced without causing an obstruction. I don’t think this is always the council / TfL’s fault - sometimes we can all be a bit selfish.

Yes as well as the aesthetics, for one thing street trees provide shade and help reduce the temperature in cities during hot weather.

I have a tree in my front garden - it’s not huge so doesn’t block the light, but provides enough light shade that on a hot day my living room is significantly shadier and cooler than the room upstairs which doesn’t get the benefit. However my front garden is fairly unusual as most seem to be paved / tarmaced over now.

When the trees were chopped down in front of my house in 2013 I contacted the Council to ask when they would be replaced but had no response. I was told by the tree surgeons that one tree was diseased, and the other was leaning too far into the road, which was true, but no reason why that couldn’t have been replaced by something smaller.

RE: The trees that you have highlighted - the one on Stanstead Road is actually the responsibility of TfL as it is on a red route. I can’t think why the one on Kilmorie would be removed but perhaps it was diseased?

Regarding the trees removed on your street - even if they are not on the map these locations should still be viable. Are the trees which were removed still shown on the map or are they simply missing?

It should be noted that it is possible to request a new tree in any location, however if it is a ‘new’ location (i.e. not an existing tree pit) then it requires a bit more work as the suitability of the site etc. has to be established which involves scanning for services (drains, cables etc.) etc.

Hi I am not sure why the Kilmorie one was removed, I didn’t see them doing it or I would have asked.

The trees that were removed from the street near to my house in 2013 are not shown on the map, they are missing. I can remember it clearly because my children were quite upset to see them being chopped down, so I asked the tree surgeons if I could keep a couple of the tree stumps which I have put in the back garden so at least the local stag beetle population got some benefit! One of the trees had the telephone cable above it and the cable ran through the branches, so that may also have been a problem. So possibly that wasn’t the best location for a street tree! But the other tree that was removed was apparently due to disease, it didn’t have any cables above it.

Do you find people object to street trees, or are they always in favour? I mention it because I have heard neighbours comment ‘well at least we won’t get bird droppings on the cars now’ so wondered if there are ever negative responses to trees being planted?

I am worried I am hijacking this thread! Would love to see comments from others!

I objected to the specific location of one being planted next to my home (in another borough). The tree was in line of sight of my satellite dish and the satellite. Due to a very tall church across the road, I was limited to where the dish could be attached to my house. A move of a couple of meters in either direction would have solved the problem. I objected to the location, offered a solution and was ignored. A few years later when the tree had grown high enough to block any good signal my complaint landed on deaf ears.

But in general I like trees. But I also like sunshine in my house and sometimes the two don’t match up.

I think some of the existing trees are not suitable now they have grown so large, especially the sycamore trees. There are many that cause real damage to the pavement and that and low hanging branches can be a nightmare for the more infirm in the community. I understand that any new trees planted are more suitable for street trees in terms of height and root size.