Tree Cull on Gainsford Street

Was quite taken aback to find all the trees along Gainsford Street, the bit between the Lafone Street and Horselydown Lane, have been chopped down. Anyone know the reason?

The council tree officer will.

i've been meaning to post the link for a while, sorry, the council is 'consulting' on its tree strategy & will hold two public meetings about it soon http://www.peoplesrepublicofsouthwark.co.uk/hold-news/news/2467-tree-strategy-meetings

(you can download the actual strategy from the article too)

pros wrote:

i've been meaning to post the link for a while, sorry, the council is 'consulting' on its tree strategy & will hold two public meetings about it soon http://www.peoplesrepublicofsouthwark.co.uk/hold-news/news/2467-tree-strategy-meetings
(you can download the actual strategy from the article too)

Thanks for that. I'll have a read. I assumed that as some SE1'ers live in that area, someone might know the reason. It seems such a drastic measure.

i think the biggest problem is precisely in the assumption that someone, say the people living on gaynsford street/nearby, should've known about it. which few, if any, in reality did.
the last two years have been quite disastrous for plant life in southwark, from destruction of mature trees in burgess park (and disruption of birds & wildlife), to declaring that shrubs are a health & safety risk as they make it easier for people to rob others (ignoring the fact that, if you decide to rob someone, you will do it with or without shrubbery), to relentless chopping of branches off trees across the council estates in the middle of summer, to the nightmare in bermondsey & rotherhithe (rotherhithe new road trees temporarily saved), to the tree nightmare in st giles, camberwell, to the outlandish suggestion to build a new library on the site of very much alive orchard (camberwell green, yet to be saved), to the recent incident with the award-winning community planting, to now gainsford st...
how the council seem to be doing things is simply by announcing, assuming we should 'trust' them, without ever giving us a good enough reason, let alone evidence, to do so.
admittedly, if you were to get 10 or 20 or 50 different people in a room you may get 10 or 20 or 50 different opinions on any one issue but then you all work through things towards a solution all of you are happy with rather than wasting everyone's time & patience.
rant over! :)

Just got home from a trip abroad, to see how the character of Gainsford St has dramatically changed since the trees have been cut down. However, they do appear to be on private property and not the pavement, so perhaps this was a freeholder decision.

Lady Gainsford wrote:

Just got home from a trip abroad, to see how the character of Gainsford St has dramatically changed since the trees have been cut down. However, they do appear to be on private property and not the pavement, so perhaps this was a freeholder decision.

I think you may be right re it being private property. I'll try and find out more from a resident when I bump into one. It's a bad decision though if you ask me. Could parking space be the reason?

I challenged a chainsaw-wielding council operative on Tuesday morning as to why. He muttered something about "out of scale with environment". I retreated in despair, the character of the street decimated in a few minutes.

SERES wrote:

I challenged a chainsaw-wielding council operative on Tuesday morning as to why. He muttered something about "out of scale with environment". I retreated in despair, the character of the street decimated in a few minutes.

So it's definitely council then? I haven't found the right word yet how to describe this, but it does feel like a culling, it is almost an act of violence. I hope for their sake the residents agreed to this, otherwise it just feels like some sort of punishment. I enjoyed walking down that side of the street after a few drinks at the Dean Swift, it just doesn't feel the same anymore. I actually have a sense of loss. Odd.

eDWaRD not sure about your parking theory as the stumps that have been left would prevent beneficial parking for the owner occupiers. However, I too am interested in who authorised such a fundamental change to the character of this "green and pleasant" street.