Wandsworth Council has received massive backlash after confirming plans to axe 150-year-old trees in Chestnut Avenue.

Residents who are concerned about the horse chestnut trees in Tooting Bec Common received a letter last week (August 31), detailing the order which will come into effect on September 12 and remain in force for the next six months while arboricultural plans are carried out.

The letter sent by Paul Chadwick, director of environmental and community services at Richmond Council but also works in Wandsworth, said the plans will involve replacing 51 trees and re-planting 64 new ones.

The order has sparked controversy and a petition has been launched by local residents group, Friends of Tooting Common, which aims to prevent the trees from being felled.

Tooting MP Dr Rosena Allin-Khan has written to Rt Hon Sajid Javid MP, secretary of state for the department of local communities and government, demanding for an independent review as well as the suspension of any works until they have been completed.

She said: “Despite strong evidence supporting alternative management of the trees’ health, Wandsworth Council has given notice of plans to commence the cutting down of the horse chestnut trees but not replacing them with a like-for-like replacement.

“I am concerned that this course of action is a waste of resources, particularly at a time when the Government is slashing authority budgets.”

Councillor Fleur Anderson, Labour’s speaker on community services is adamantly against the extended closure of the avenue, believing that it is “very heavy handed”.

She added: “The council, which originally said the work would take no more than six weeks, has not explained what will happen to the ongoing users of the avenue, including commuting cyclists and families who use it daily”.

Councillor Jonathan Cook, Conversatives’ cabinet member for community services, believes the letter is “wrong, misguided and ill-informed”, saying the issue has been “fully debated, [with] a very thorough public consultation, and a course of action agreed supported by her Labour colleagues on the council”.

He said: “It’s a sad fact but the trees are nearing the end of their natural lives and through a combination of old age and disease are entering a phase where they could soon start toppling over.

“One did precisely that last year while another had to be taken down in June because it was so riddled with decay.

“In place of the 51 trees that are being replaced we will be planting 64 new ones so the avenue is kept alive for future generations and survives for the next 150 years.

“This is precisely what the public consultation asked us to do.”

Two surveys commissioned by the council in 2015 found that the trees’ conditions were deteriorating due to a combination of age and other factors, and also found that one had fallen over while others had needed “very significant pruning to remove weak limbs”.

One of them, the Heritage Tree Survey, recorded 30 of the 77 trees as being in ‘good’ condition, with 43 described as ‘fair’, while two were ‘dead’ or in ‘serious decline’.

Another tree condition survey, conducted by Gifford Tree Services, said that the avenue was in “significantly worse condition than the earlier Heritage Tree Survey study suggested”.

Of the horse chestnut trees surveyed, three were recorded as dead, 26 were ‘poor’, 29 as ‘fair’ and four as ‘good’.

In contrast, tree consultant and specialist in heritage tree assessment, Jeremy Barrell, conducted an independent survey in April and concluded: "My assessment of the trees is that none are dangerous, none are dead, and most have the potential to be retained with limited intervention for decades.”

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