Council want to stick a tree outside my house

[tony.c]

Our road has 100 year old plane trees along it. A few have had to be cut down because of disease. Five years ago the council planted some new ones. One is outside our building. They didn't tell us.
I like trees being planted, but a bit further down the road someone cut one of the new trees down.
More leaves to be swept up in Autumn but not a big problem. The roots have pushed paving blocks up causing a trip hazard. I reported that to the Council and within six days they had removed those blocks and asphalted over damaged area.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

No - they describe it as 'street trees of mixed species'.

Then it sounds like they're well-meaning idiots. Not all trees are the same in that different trees have different size root spreads.

Idiots did that a couple of times on my estate years ago. They planted some trees really close to some of the blocks, some of them died, because they weren't watered/looked after in the drought that ensued.

So then they proposed to plant some more. To make up for chopping trees down on a nearby plot of land to build some flats.

Anyway, the upshot was that I pointed out that they had previously planted trees too close to some blocks of flats and repeatedly asked them what tree they were proposing to plant outside my block, bearing in mind that I'm a leaseholder and if they f*** up the foundations by planting a tree too close, I was going to have to foot the bill for their incompetence. They kept not answering. I posted in a community Facebook group to the effect that I still didn't have a response from the housing and I was upset that they'd gone ahead and planted it despite my reservations and without telling me what sort of tree it was so that I could do some research and look up the root spread and check that they hadn't planted it too close.

The upshot was that a lovely kind neighbour, who kind of had the hots for me,* read my post and then took it upon himself to uproot and rehome the tree.

The thing was, I didn't have a complete and total objection to trees being planted on the patch of grass next to my block, providing that they did their homework and knew the root spreads for different trees and didn't plant the wrong tree in the wrong location. But I just knew that the people who organised these plantings were generally incompetent fuckwits. Because they had previous.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Until a week ago we had a dead thirty foot silver birch right outside our house.it was dropping branches that were substantial enough to damage parked cars.And yet despite repeated assurances the Council failed to do anything about it and we had to scale it and dispose of it ourselves.

The trick with councils, if their environment department or whoever's remit it is fails to act, is to send something to their legal department, (and cc to local councillors), pointing out that they've failed to take action when they've been warned about a risk to health and safety, and by writing to their legal department, they're effectively 'on notice' that there's a risk of injury or damage and that they haven't taken any remedial action to avert that risk. And that wouldn't go down well, in the event that a branch fell on a person or on a vehicle containing a person and injured or killed them, if it could be proven they were aware of the danger and did nothing about it.

They often won't consider it to be urgent unless they can justify the works in terms of minimising the risk of their being sued.

 

[bellaozzydog]

I spent an inordinate amount of time brushing leaves up in my alley due to the big feck off tree near by.

Then the neighbour got it brutally pollarded and now I miss the green and the tweeting birds and the shade

Guessing it will grow back pretty strong/vigorously. On balance my vote is a yay for urban trees

If you are pained to have to park under trees a rinsing of wet and forget on your motor after you wash it makes the tree goop easier to remove/control

 

[jontz01]

They won't be planting a full grown tree so if you don't like where they plant it just dig it up and move it.

Exactly this.

 

[tim]

Newham Council always strikes me as fairly useless. We certainly don't have posh recycling with multiple bins. However they do manage to trim our street trees every three years or so.

 

[DownwardDog]

Got a letter about planting a tree. I'm not really against the idea, but they're proposing to put it virtually directly in front of my front window.

Had a walk around the street and most are positioned where the terrace houses join onto each other so minimising impact on the light.

I've emailed them back asking for some more details.. but not sure if I have any rights in the matter.

If they moved it a couple feet to the right it:d be okay.

Just rip it up in the dead of night. They wil soon get sick of replanting it.

 

[Griff]

I always find it quite sad when established street trees are cut down by the council, just leaving stumps. But I can understand if the roots are becoming a problem or the trees are diseased.

A new tree should be welcomed IMHO.

 

[marty21]

Newham Council always strikes me as fairly useless. We certainly don't have posh recycling with multiple bins. However they do manage to trim our street trees every three years or so.

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Hackney are pretty good at that too - my road's trees get a good seeing to, at least once every 2 years.

 

[ddraig]

Just rip it up in the dead of night. They wil soon get sick of replanting it.

shit selfish me me me attitude

 

[Dystopiary]

There needs to be more urban trees, but it seems like the people who decide what tree goes where don't plan or think ahead. It's as though it doesn't occur to them that trees put out roots and tend to get quite big.

 

[WouldBe]

There needs to be more urban trees, but it seems like the people who decide what tree goes where don't plan or think ahead. It's as though it doesn't occur to them that trees put out roots and tend to get quite big.

Bonsai.