Casebook of Dr. Slater - No. 15 - DEVELOPMENT & TREES: Are We Getting The Balance Right?

As a tutor in arboriculture and urban forestry, I have had some students doing their research projects on various aspects of trees and development – several focusing on new housing developments in the UK. Some of these students initially suggested a desktop study of planning applications and their outcomes for the project – but I emphasised just how important it is to do some ‘ground-truthing’ – to go to the sites and see just how many trees have been removed and how many replanted.?This advice is given because it is very often the case that the accepted plans and the reality of a development site are often set quite far apart – and, nearly always, trees come off the worse when changes to such plans are made.?

In this short article, I will share some examples of how housing developments can be a real let-down when it comes to retaining mature trees – and planting new ones in replacement. This should not be the case – perhaps we need more “boots on the ground” to enforce landscaping requirements, and not just master’s students’ research projects!?

IMPINGEING ?

For most housing developments, the pressure is on companies to deliver profits. Perhaps we have the wrong model for creating our new housing stock, as this highly profit-driven approach leads to a lot of cutting of corners (e.g., Boothman et al., 2018).?

When it comes to trees and woodland, there are so many cases of incompatibility that are being allowed through planning in my local area: once a new house is close-up to a large tree, it’s quite predictable that some pruning or reduction of the tree is on the cards, as the average UK citizen does not want their house in the shade, nor the additional on-going maintenance of a tree-line that hangs over their home’s guttering.?

This is why I stopped to take this picture – of a couple of roof tilers putting on the roof of a new-build: and, yes, you are not imagining it, the branches of the adjacent tree are immediately in contact with this new roof as it is being built. These builders had to cut back the branches with carpentry saws just to complete the job. Unsurprisingly, when I returned 18 months later, the encroaching trees had been pruned back quite hard. Perhaps more surprisingly, a replacement tree had been planted outside of the new house – but also underneath the canopy of the mature tree (indicated by the red circle), which proved to be ineffective and has subsequently been removed.?This sort of poor planning for trees is commonplace, unfortunately, and really devalues the retained trees on such a site.?

FINE MINDS = A FINE BALANCE?

Trees are so important to urban living because of the many benefits that they provide citizens with. Although there are some negatives about having trees near buildings and infrastructure, if the trees are selected and managed professionally, the benefits greatly outweigh the detrimental effects.?

I have studied at a few universities (I’m near to completing my sixth degree course at time of writing) and have visited many more. University campuses can hold great collections of amenity trees. However, the need to expand a university campus often leads to a reduction in tree cover, which I have seen in three major university campuses over the last few years, by re-visiting them.?

Figure 2 shows the removal of a group of upright hornbeams (Carpinus betulus ‘Fastigiata’) when a building at a local university was revamped and a new foyer was added. Trees can, of course, be a constraint to a worthy development; however, it is important to achieve a good balance and ensure that the campus’s canopy cover is not diminishing over time. At another local university, where many trees were removed for new building projects in the last five years, the response has been to plant new trees between the older buildings, but one can already see many conflicts that will arise as the trees grow larger.?

Universities may be the ‘homes of boffins’, but like on many other sites, trees often come off worse when choices are being made about development and site design. We need smarter solutions.?

AWARDS FOR FAILURE

Cynical as I am, I could not help taking an image of the promotional sign for this local housing development, which boasts its award-winning credentials. However, wander around the new site, and one finds about a third of the newly-planted trees – typically a requirement for planning consent for such a development – are dead or dying. That, and some of the promised new plantings have been omitted due to poor planning of utility runs or they are swiftly removed by the new owners, even though this is in breach of the planning conditions.?

For the developers, the planting up of a new housing site is very often a one-off action, even though planning conditions and landscape contracts may be drawn up that insist that replacement planting is carried out when a tree fails to establish over a fixed number of years. This shows the strong need for local authority officers to be given the time and resources to follow-up on these landscaping commitments and to enforce that their requirements are met. Where I live, sadly, this is rarely done.?

Near to the coast at Lytham-St Annes is a new housing site which included the planting of fifteen trees (all Sorbus species) at the front of the site – in a very prominent position near the main road. Most of them had died within the year – most probably because of the harsh growing environment they had been moved into – and the lack of aftercare. I will be revisiting this site out of interest, to see if any of these trees get replaced – in my experience, most of the trees that die on such sites do not get to be replaced. Reminds me of that song: “Lytham let die!”?

DIVORCED FROM NATURE

One of the key benefits of urban trees is not only are they ‘place makers’, but they improve our mental well-being just by their presence (Wolf et al., 2020). This has never been more obvious than through the recent COVID-related lockdowns, here and in much of Europe?- where the green spaces and green networks of our towns and cities were lifelines for keeping our citizens going – both physically and mentally.?

A recent trend that worries me greatly is where housing developments include areas that are entirely tree-less, as shown in Figure 4.?Living in one of these apartments, one would not be sure of the season when looking out of the window, as there would be no natural features to even give a hint of the time of year (particularly as, in Lancashire, the rain dial is constantly set to ‘repeat’).?Revisiting the site, which is 100% hard standing and building footprint, unsurprisingly there has been no substantial ‘greening’ that has happened. For me, living in a denuded place like this would be highly dispiriting – and many residents in such places may end up feeling the same, even if they are unaware as to why they find themselves depressed.?

When I showed this image at a local council meeting, one councillor chose to be a devil’s advocate, and said that at least there would be no leaves to clear up – and no birds pooping on the residents’ cars. In response, I told him that if there were fewer reasons to go outside and get a bit of fresh air, we were just facilitating more “couch-based living” and all the health issues that this entails. Urban trees encourage us out, to interact with Nature, to live healthier lives.?

A ONCE IN A LIFETIME OPPORTUNITY?

There have been a lot of newly-enacted housing developments near to me – and probably near to you, too, if you live in England – as the government’s target for 300,000 new homes/year is intended to be met for the foreseeable! Mature trees, particularly in the middle of the sites, can reduce the number of units that can be placed on a new housing estate.?

There are essentially two approaches to this ‘problem’. First, one can recognise the high value of a mature tree and make the most of it – taking the ‘hit’ of losing a couple of housing units - but give the tree a good setting and it will be a beautiful visual asset that will entice more people to buy the properties and even, potentially, pay a premium for them (Schroeder et al., 2006).?

Second, if the developer fails to recognise the opportunity of incorporating the mature tree into the design, just fell it and get on with your original plans.?Despite raising these cases with my own local council, this has happened multiple times in new housing areas locally. The c. 250-year-old oak, pictured in Figure 5, is not something that anyone can replace in their own lifetime – nor in their children’s children’s lifetimes – and, yet, for the sake of one more poorly-built housing unit, this tree was felled.?

Sadly, sometimes, the tree consultants hired help to facilitate this slaughtering of mid-site trees. In the report for this site, apparently this mature oak “showed signs of previous limb shedding”. This is normal in an oak tree of this age – it’s a sign that it is just ‘getting interesting’ from the point of view of its ecology and habitat value. Much more reason to give it some space – and retain it – not to condemn it.?

LESSONS LEARNT?

It is truly shocking, if you do walk your boots around a few of these new developments, how so many have caused major tree losses and created few gains in canopy cover. Our national planning policy framework (NPPF) and the new Environment Act promote sustainable development and ‘biodiversity net gain’ – but that’s not?what is happening on any of these new housing sites in Lancashire. As more of these poorly designed developments are completed, our opportunities to ‘build back better’ are diminished. In my view, we must admit the vast chasm that lies between our development policies and the reality of what gets built. To close that chasm, we should insist on integrated green infrastructure featuring prominently on new development sites and that the new greenery’s upkeep is guaranteed. Such a ‘green guarantee’ has yet to be delivered.?

REFERENCES?

Boothman, C, Craig N and Sommerville J (2018) The UK housing developers’ five-star rating: fact or fiction? Journal of Facilities Management 16 (3) ISSN: 1472-5967.?

Schroeder, H, Flanningan, J and Coles R (2006) Residents’ attitudes toward street trees in the UK and US communities. Arboriculture & Urban Forestry 32 (5), 236-246.?

Wolf, K L, Lam, S T, McKeen, J K, Richardson G R A, van den Bosch, M and Bardekjian, A C (2020) Urban trees and human health: A scoping review. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 17 (12), 4371.?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR?

Dr. Duncan Slater is a senior lecturer in arboriculture at Myerscough College, Lancashire.?He is also a co-ordinator of Arbor Day UK (#ArborDayUK) – an action group that seeks to put new trees and woodlands back into the landscape. Duncan is currently studying his sixth university degree – in environmental management.

*** THIS ARTICLE WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN PROARB MAGAZINE - MAY 2021 ***