Many thanks to all our Welsh members and supporters who have emailed their Assembly Members to call for the Assembly to use its new powers following the election to strengthen the protection for Wales’ trees. (Thanks also to all those outside Wales who emailed the Welsh Environment Minister, Carwyn Jones AM. This was a great help.)
This followed an unfortunate incident in Penmaenmawr last Autumn when two mature oaks where felled on a Saturday morning, and the Council Officers could not be contacted regarding an emergency Tree Preservation Order.
The latest news is that 15 AMs, together representing one quarter of the Assembly’s membership, have put their names to a Statement of Opinion (similar to an Early Day Motion at Westminster) calling for the tightening of Tree Preservation Order legislation. This is an excellent result and the Woodland Trust is very grateful to all the AMs who have signed up. Whilst the Statement of Opinion has no direct legislative force, it shows that there is a strength of feeling on the issue, and makes it more likely that the rules will be tightened following the election.
If your constituency AM, or any of your Regional AMs, have not yet subscribed to the Statement of Opinion, you can help support the campaign by emailing them, if you have not done so already. You could highlight and copy the text below, paste it into an email and then amend it to create your own message.
Simply click here to go to the Assembly’s website to find the name and email address of your AMs. You can check these against the list of those AMs who have signed the Statement of Opinion. You could email your constituency member and/or any of your Regional Members.
If you receive an interesting response from your AM, expressing an opinion one way or another, we would be grateful if you could pass it on to us.
Dear
Wales’ ancient and heritage trees – don’t they deserve better?
I am emailing you as my local Assembly Member to ask you to support the campaign to provide proper protection for trees in Wales, strengthening present legislation which was passed by the Westminster Parliament in 1990 in the Town and County Planning Act, by signing up to the Statement of Opinion on this tabled on 13 December.
You may have read in the press of the sad events in Penmaenmawr on 28 October when three trees, one of them a 200-300 year old oak, were felled by contractors, at a time when the local council’s tree officer was uncontactable. Planning permission for houses had previously been refused on the site and local residents fear that the felling of the trees on a Saturday morning, was a crude attempt to remove a key obstacle to a new application.
Had the contractors arrived on a normal working day, local residents could have contacted the council, and a provisional Tree Preservation Order might have been imposed.
In the event, though the local residents called the police, they were powerless to stop the felling.
It is likely that these trees together had a timber volume of over 5 cubic metres. Under the Forestry Act is illegal to cut this volume of timber within one quarter without a felling licence from the Forestry Commission. The contractor had no such licence, but we shall see whether this leads to an eventual prosecution.
The local residents were devastated by the loss of these trees. The oldest of them is likely to have been standing since before the Industrial Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.
I believe the way these trees were lost underlines how the system is failing to protect Wales’ trees. I therefore support the Campaign by the Woodland Trust for the Assembly to review the Tree Preservation Order legislation and its implementation and then use its new powers to legislate to provide proper protection for all trees, but especially for ancient and heritage trees.
I would support the following changes:
• Removal of the exemptions whereby a tree which is dead or dying may be felled whether it is actually dangerous or not, as important ancient and heritage trees can be can retain their ecological and historical importance even when dead and can take many centuries to gradually decline
• Ensure that local authority tree officers can be contacted directly out of office hours so that provisional Tree Protection Orders can be imposed in an emergency
• The possibility of providing automatic protection for all trees of a specified size or quality for example with a trunk diameter greater than 1m
• A simplification of the penalty system to create a more meaningful deterrent to unauthorised felling
• Creating a statutory register of trees of special interest which would receive more proactive support from the authorities
• Greater support for landowners for the positive management of ancient and heritage trees
There are important heritage trees in every area of Wales, and what happened in Penmaenmawr could happen anywhere else tomorrow. Don’t you think that our trees deserve better protection than they enjoy at present? Will you subscribe to the Statement of Opinion on this tabled on 13 December?
Yours sincerely
Your name and address
