New Evidence Against Tree Pollarding Plans

27 January 2006 - Residents of Lime Tree Road, Green Party councillors and members of Friends of the Earth are celebrating two positive developments in their fight against plans by Norwich City Council to radically pollard 32 mature trees in Lime Tree Road.

Firstly, the independent arboricultural consultant, who has already suggested more appropriate methods of maintaining the trees, has written a supplementary report containing further arguments against the pollarding plans. Secondly, the City Council has postponed the start of pollarding work from Monday 30th January to Monday 6th February because it has said it wants to allow more time to consider the views of the residents and the reports of the independent arboricultural consultant.

The City Council's main argument for the pollarding work being necessary to tackle potential safety problems from the trees is that trees that have been pollarded in the past need to be regularly re-pollarded. (Pollarding means cutting off all the branches of the tree so as to leave only the trunk). However, the independent arboricultural consultant states that "these trees were not previously pollarded they were topped" (1). He argues that, as the trees have not been regularly pollarded from a young age, pollarding them now would increase potential safety problems (2) and he reiterates his original conclusion that more appropriate methods of managing the trees are "crown reduction, removal of weak limbs and other remedial pruning" (1).

After informing the residents of Lime Tree Road that the work had been delayed for a week because it wanted to allow more time to consider the reports of the independent arboricultural consultant and the views of the residents, the City Council has today announced that there will be a public meeting to discuss the issue on Wednesday 1st February.

Chris Hull, Green Party County Councillor for Town Close ward (which includes Lime Tree Road), said: "I welcome the City Council’s decision to put off this work and hold a public meeting to hear the views of the residents and discuss the reports of the independent arboricultural consultant. Radically pollarding these 32 mature lime trees would destroy their appearance, the local environment and wildlife habitat. We now also have strong technical evidence against the arguments the council has put forward for doing this work. I hope the City Council really will listen to these arguments and the views of the local residents at the public meeting and abandon its plans to radically pollard the trees in favour of the less drastic, more environmentally sensitive, safer and cheaper alternatives that have been put forward."

The City Council has stated that it would intend to re-pollard the Lime Tree Road trees every 2 to 4 years after the pollarding planned for this year has taken place. The report of the independent arboricultural consultant also concludes that this method of tree management is more expensive than the alternatives (3).

Notes:

"It states that pollarding is the only management approach that does anything to counter the decay at the old pollard head. These trees were not previously pollarded they were topped. Pollarding is the repeated cropping of the re-grown shoots and I do not believe these trees have been repeatedly cut. I do agree there will be decay at these old topping points but the tree will be putting on annual ring growth around these decayed areas strengthening the outer shell. Some individual trees do have structural faults at these old topping points in particular tight V shaped unions with included bark. These unions can be points of structural weakness which can be more prone to failure as the stem’s increase in girth and push against each other. These individual problems can be resolved by crown reduction, removal of weak limbs and other remedial pruning."
"The process of pollarding the trees at this late stage in life will most likely result in large columns of dysfunctional wood followed by decay. The only vascular connection with the new branches will be in the annual ring which grows following pollarding. I believe pollarding will increase the potential for decay as opposed to other methods of maintenance."
"The decision to manage these trees as pollards means that the Green Spaces Team will be committed to managing these trees by a program of re-pollarding regularly (possibly every 2-3 years) for the rest of the trees’ life. This re-pollarding programme will require considerable financial resources and staff labour to maintain it. If for some reason either of these resources are cut or diminished it will result in the trees’ becoming lapsed pollards with a high potential for hazard risk. If the trees were managed by crown reduction and then the resources were cut, the risk of failure would not be as high as from lapsed pollards."
The pollarding of the lime trees began last May, after which the council said it would be pollarding the rest of the trees in early 2006.
Around the time the original work was carried out, a petition signed by an overwhelming majority of residents on the road (there were over 50 signatures) was submitted to the City Council, calling for the pollarding plans to be abandoned.
The fresh public meeting on the issue will be held on Wednesday 1st February at 7:30pm in the council chamber at City Hall. It may be necessary to enter the building via the former car park round the back.