Forget the bottom line, just treasure our precious trees

Published: 17 June, 2011

• AS a landscape architect and Islington resident, I agree with Meg Howarth that the felling of two plane trees is a worrying precedent (Bleak future for trees, June 10). More of Islington’s trees and environment could be under threat from those who “know the cost of everything and the value of nothing”. What’s the point of having a tree policy if it can be bypassed in such a cavalier fashion?

We must learn that trees are more assets than liabilities. Although ways to measure this are now recognised, they are ignored and the wrong decisions are made. 

I understand the pressure to save money in these straitened times – it’s always easier to take the cheap option rather than an ethical stand.

What are we to do about this? Maybe those with such valuable properties should be responsible for sufficient underpinning to allow the trees to live, benefiting everyone in the long term.

And in the short-term re-election guessing game, will voters reward councillors for protecting their council tax rates and looking after their financial interests, or will they blame them for not taking a stand and protecting our precious environment? Does it always have to boil down to the bottom line?

SUSAN LOWENTHAL
Medina Road, N7

• WHAT a shame that, in the week the excellent Fairness Commission report was published, Islington Council took action in direct contravention of the commission’s recommendation on public space, which states: “We need to reclaim, protect and maintain communal spaces for community use.”  

The benefits to health and wellbeing provided by the needlessly-felled plane trees in Richmond Avenue (Axeman cometh, June 10) are lost to the community for ever. Street trees take years to grow and are an invaluable asset to the community, not only providing shade, cleaning our polluted air and improving the visual amenity of public space but also contributing to the health and mental wellbeing of all residents.  

Nothing can be done in the short term to replace a pair of trees thought to be 150 years old, but perhaps the council can commit to considering the fairness implications of spending its money on destroying community assets for the benefit of insurance companies and private householders?

CAROLINE RUSSELL 
Islington Green Party