Landscape - TrustNews Summer 1995
Trees
We mentioned new tree planting in Middle Brook Street Car Park in the Spring Newsletter and are pleased to report that the ten extra heavy size trees were planted this Spring with excellent protection to try and avoid the damage caused by cars parking shown in that Newsletter. The Engineering Department of the City carried out the work and the archaeologists looked and probed in the excavated pits but nothing of interest was found.
Members may have seen the photograph in the Hampshire Chronicle when the Trust handed a cheque for £2000 to David Marklew, Chief Engineer, as a donation towards this work. Sadly we have again been unable to get the trees planted on the corner of Friarsgate and Eastgate streets, due to the City not being able to get the tenants of the adjoining flats to agree, in spite of no loss of parking spaces.
Earlier this year several people were concerned about trees being felled alongside the Navigation Canal near Tun bridge. Approval was required from the Forestry Commission as this was deemed to be a woodland, and they were able to stop further work until they had assessed the trees.
Within the City area we do come across a number of statutory bodies concerning trees. If in a Conservation Area, all work on trees, whether pruning or felling, needs permission and this is issued by the City Planning Department. In addition we have Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) which come under English Nature at Lyndhurst, and Hampshire Wildlife Trust (based in Eastleigh) may also have an interest and need to be consulted. For woodlands, which may be small, permission is required from the Forestry Commission (near Farnham) if more than 5 cubic metres of timber in any one quarter is to be felled. Now we have a new designation ASLQ (Area of Special Landscape Quality), under the jurisdiction of Hampshire County Council, but at the moment we are unsure what this means in terms of what can or cannot be done within the area. Slightly further from the City we have AONB (Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty) administered by the Countryside Commission, who also deal at times with the Urban fringe. Some areas are covered by more than one designation.
As is apparent from the above, some schemes require consultation with several statutory bodies. Unfortunately it seems that sometimes those bodies interested in flora and fauna can influence too strongly the selection of trees, and insufficient attention is paid to the relevant landscape features of the site. Different species of tree should be selected for the chalk hills than for the river valleys, thus perpetuating the natural diversity of the vegetation and the landscape. Too often we seem to tend these days to have a rubber-stamp policy which is eliminating topographical differences and leading towards an overall sameness in our planting schemes.