Shame: a local winter's tale

Following so much Palermitan arboreal profusion, here's a footnote about leaner times back home. The trees are down that we fought so hard to save. This is a local issue tied to the still-beautiful but constantly despoiled square in which I live. Yet for me the larger picture of which it is only a part gives quite an insight into power and how reluctant people are to relinquish it - namely one of our residents who presumably started out with the best of intentions back in the 1980s and still holds a key position after all these years.

That larger picture includes the destruction of a thriving ecosystem in our back yard, set up more than two decades ago by the delightful ladies who used to live in the two flats downstairs - flowerbeds,trellissing and a small pond among the features. 

I tended it when they moved away. It was uprooted lock, stock and barrel when the 'common parts' needed repaving. Difficult to say how much damage the resulting stress caused (though I think I know). The big picture also includes the removal of a huge diversity of plants in our front gardens, replaced with ugly, low-level shrubbery that's sterile for bees or other wildlife. Other horrors have included mid-May tree-pruning and the unadvertised devastation of another little garden patch I used to manage on the other side of the Gardens (this peony was one of the transplants).

It was a legacy from the late and avidly campaigning Barry Rutson - whose widow Stella still joins the fight (she's second from the right in the Normand Park shots below, taken before the chop by fellow neighbour and professional photographer Rowena Chowdrey). It was bulldozered to make way for building storage and rubbish.

Those of us who campaign can never win so long as the majority which lives in the 250 flats here remains apathetic and the rule of one vote per flat owner means that the absentee landlords can always hold sway. There are too many transient residents, too many rentees afraid of their renters' reaction (a multiple flat owner sits on the board, even though he doesn't live here). A residents' association until recently strongly linked to the managing board didn't help either. Anyway, some two dozen of us fought in this case, ultimately in vain, and for the record I lay out the facts as I tried to state them clearly as background for the brief report in the Fulham and Hammersmith Chronicle.

On 19 June 2009 residents received a letter from the management enclosed with the service charge bill informing them that the 24 black poplar trees behind the garages on the south side of the estate were to be felled, because they were causing subsidence to the prefabricated garages.The reason given was to protect our insurance policy with Norwich Aviva re the garages, which we were told the company refused to insure against subsidence unless the trees were removed. 

We asked for evidence on this. We were not satisfied with the documentation. Hammersmith and Fulham Council took up the issue on our behalf. They also were not satisfied with the answer, which is why they issued a temporary tree preservation order in September 2009. Our documentation had included a petition of 500 signatures, including those not just of QCG [Queen's Club Gardens] residents but also of local people who use Normand Park.

From the correspondence advertising that intention on the residents’ website, the Board would surely have known about it when the Tree Company started felling the trees on 21 September 2009, even if they had not received the order officially. Six trees were lost before the order was served on the spot [hence the gap in the row of teeth below].

 On 29 September the management denied access to the council’s attempts to hand-deliver to residents notification of the temporary TPO on 29 September. It did this on the grounds that it was inaccurate to state the gap can be seen from Normand Park (any photograph will tell the opposite story [and the one below does]). A letter from an arbicultural officer of H&F council backs up the details in the attached Doc. 1.

Some of the garages were/are owned by members of the QCG Residents’ Assocation committee, closely linked at least at the time to the Board, with one member owning several and the Residents’ Association itself leasing out another (the reason behind this was never clarified). Their concern was understandable; they wanted to see their property protected. Not all garage owners, however, are convinced of the necessity for the trees' removal.

The relatively low number of garage owners is charged through a separate service charge. The general service charge, however, lands the costs for tree removal with all of us. It could be argued that the trees come with the estate, and should be dealt with by all. The garages, however, do not.

The Tree Preservation Order was made ‘permanent’ on 5 March 2010. In late August/early September 2011 it was revoked on further application from QCG Ltd. My entry pointing out a major discrepancy in the original TPO and the new ‘survey’ is attached as Document 2.

[Contradictory quotations from the official TPO report and the later revocation report:

Original, section 5.15: ‘The Council’s Principal Arboricultural Officer has stated that the trees are middle aged specimens and appear to be in good condition. The trees are some of the largest in the immediate vicinity and are regarded as making a positive contribution to amenity within the local area and to the setting of the Queen’s Club Gardens Conservation Area. The trees act as a green foil to the surrounding development and have a high degree of amenity value for local residents whose homes surround them, in particular for Queen’s Club Gardens residents whose homes face Normand Park and the rear wall of the Fulham Pools building. Trees within the Tree Preservation Order are visible from the street in Normand Road and from within Normand Park where they form an attractive backdrop to the recently refurbished park. It is considered therefore that the loss of the trees would be detrimental to the visual amenity of the surrounding area, particularly in the light of the lack of conclusive supporting evidence to justify the loss of the trees.'

Now here's the opposite conclusion drawn in the revocation, Inspector John Feldgate's report, section 10, backing up his comment in section 9 that the trees' visibility constitutes 'entirely private rather than public vantage points': 'From the public realm, viewpoints are surprisingly limited. From most of Normand Park, despite the difference in levels, the trees in question are mostly obscured by the pool building, or by the numerous other trees within the park itself [see above photo for the nonsense of this]. From the café, play area and tennis courts there are partial views, but from none of these areas do the appeal trees appear as an important feature in the context of the park as a whole.. .it seems to me that the trees in question make no more than a minor contribution to the area’s visual amenity.']

We were told that this decision was final so there was nothing more to be done. The felling of the trees is due to go ahead in a few days’ time. Our only option was to make this public through a newspaper article. 

The stand was made, the trees went in February. The F&HC reporter got no further than we did with the council's reasons for tergiversation. Leader for Transport and Technical Services, Councillor Victoria Brocklebank-Fowler told him only that 'regrettably the Planning Inspectorate has overruled our decision [to issue a Tree Preservation Order]'. Why? And what good did our belated protests do, asked one disgruntled older resident? They served as a testimony and a memorial for all the hard work put in over the years.An RIP, then, for another bit of natural resource in the city gone for good.

We can only live in the hope that all bad regimes fall in the end. On which note - I like this epitaph the best - Iron Lady, rust in peace.