New Tree Replanting Ratio Negotiated by Abundance London
Mature plane removed for Cycleway 9 to be replaced by 14 saplings
Hounslow Council contractors planted one of the new trees. Picture: Karen Liebriech
February 14, 2023
When Transport for London (TfL) and Hounslow Council removed a mature plane tree to make way for another upgrade to Cycleway 9 in December 2021, they committed to replace it by planting just one new tree.
However, local guerrilla gardening voluntary group, Abundance London lobbied them to make the replacement on the basis of a calculation known as CAVAT - Capital Asset Value for Amenity Trees.
This formulation assigns a monetary value to urban trees and uses trunk girth, canopy size, health and age of trees to calculate a reasonable replacement.
The lost tree was around a century old and Abundance London were advised by the local National Park City co-ordinator that a like for like replacement based on CAVAT would require the planting of 40 new trees. Eventually an agreement was reached that 14 new plane trees would be planted as near as possible to the lost tree.
It was decided to replant plane trees to match the existing tree stock on Chiswick High Road. Six trees were planted in December 2022, and Hounslow Council arboriculturists identified further sites for the remainder.
According to Karen Liebreich of Abundance London, the ground under Chiswick's pavements very congested with underground cables and other facilities, so several trial pits had to be dug before successful sites could be found allowing the remaining trees to be planted this week.
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We've always done that and won't be changing, in fact we'd like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we'd be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you'd like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |