Meeting convened by Cllr Norman Hampshire
The meeting was attended by 12 residents and 2 members of Dunpender Community council.
Mike Foy, East Lothian Council’s Tree officer, distributed drawings of the current tree planting in the Park and of ELC’s planting proposals.
He explained that for over five years Landscape & Countryside dept have wanted to do something with Coronation Avenue as none of the trees are the original planting and it has become a ‘hotchpotch’, with a number of trees having been lost through disease, limbs snapping off etc.
There were two options available to them:
1. Patch it up with a different species
2. The brave choice and hardest option, replant the lot and this work was started in February 2011.
ELC now wish to remove the remaining three acers and finish the avenue. Many acers were planted in the 1970’s when there was a trend for them. Mr Foy now spends most of his time cutting them down as they are prone to included bark – a biological, structural problem with this tree which results in branches ripping out.
Question: why choose Chanticleer Pear?
A: This tree is hardy, columnar, has nice foliage and flowers and has done well in similar settings in East Lothian. Mr Foy has many years of experience of planting this variety and thought that people would like them – a small avenue in a small park. His vision of the avenue in 50 years was a single species of the same age.
Comments from those present:
-This variety is unsuitable and there are campaigns reported on the internet to get rid of it in USA.
-Elsewhere on the internet it is cited as the top tree for urban use.
- Better to abandon the avenue and keep the mature trees. There was a loss of faith [in ELC] when the prunus at the top was felled.
- As it’s a Memorial Park it would be better to use native species
- Hard to keep an avenue whole with the wind and children playing in/on the trees.
- A double row was suggested at the meeting in the Park to bulk it up and help with the maintenance programme.
Question: Should mature trees ever be felled unless there is a safety risk? Was this the case here?
A: No. There are many valid reasons for felling trees on management grounds, for example, thinning. As a tree professional Mr Foy cannot limit tree felling to those which pose a hazard. The valid reason in this case was to re-establish an avenue. Very important trees have a protection order on them [the Park trees do not].
Cllr Hampshire suggested that a group be formed to agree a planting plan for the Park for ELC to work on in the future.
In the meantime no further work would be done on the trees.
Rejecting the idea of a separate ‘Friends of the Park’, with all the complications of setting up a new group with a constitution etc, the meeting agreed that the best option was to form a sub-committee of Dunpender Community Council [at Cllr Hampshire’s suggestion]. This group would hold a meeting outwith the normal business of DCC to discuss the Park. Members would be co-opted and report any recommendation or decision back to a public meeting of DCC [in accordance with the Scheme for Community Councils 2004].
Mrs Jane Armstrong and Mrs Stephanie Scott volunteered to join this group. The proposal is to be put to the next meeting of Dunpender Community Council on 1st December and if agreed, advertisements for further members of the sub-committee will be placed on the DCC website and on posters. Members will be asked to attend the January meeting on 5th January 2012.
J.Priest
7th December 2011