Oak trees in The Oaklands Park

This week my constituency office has been in contact with Robin Bryan, BCC’s Constituency Parks & Customer Liaison Manager for the Department of Parks & Nature Conservation.

Works which were undertaken on 5 oak trees included;

• 2 x storm damaged, and pollarded to seek regeneration
• 2 x dead wood removal, and;
• 1 x felled due to level of decay and consequential risk

The two trees that have been pruned back hard were storm damaged. The hard pruning was done to give the trees a good chance to regrow better and stronger. This particular action was chosen as the alternative would have been to remove them altogether as there was the worry that they were too top heavy and may collapse.

The Sycamores, along the fence on Broughton Road, were growing through the fence and starting to obstruct the footpath for pedestrians etc. They would eventually start damaging the fence and it is easier and cheaper to remove when they are small. They were self-set trees anyway.

Oaks have been pollarded and reduced because of severe stem decay and storm damage in the upper crowns, which obviously cannot be seen now. I know the visual impact is quite high doing this but it is far better, in our opinion, than complete removal. No doubt removal would have caused more concern locally. Other Oaks which are in better condition have been crown lifted and deadwood removed only.

The large Hornbeam, by the nursery on the perimeter, had a large trunk cavity extending up and down at approx 2 metres and now it has been felled the extent of the decay into the stump can clearly be seen.

Robin Bryan has assured my office that the Parks Department only touch park trees if it is absolutely essential. The safety of our City’s residents and visitors has to be of paramount importance.

5 new oak trees will be planted in The Oaklands during the next planning period which falls between November-March.

Should you have any further queries about this location or any related issues please do contact my office further on 722 3417 or by emailing cwrteam@john.hemming.name

Tree pruned due to storm damage.

Trees affected by recent works

Shows the level of disease and decay present in the removed tree.