Criminals!

 Over the last couple of weeks there has been all of the usual preparations and festivities, and I've come to the keyboard on several occasions to post about our goings on, but there are several things that are playing on my mind in rather a big way, and one of them is the misuse of conservation and planning laws. 

It was recently reported that a developer in Swansea had 'accidentally' felled a 200 year old redwood tree, with a Tree Preservation Order on it........by mistake.

On Linkedin, throughout the various professional horticultural circles that appear to join endless people, there has been widespread contempt throughout the country, from garden companies, designers, tree officers and surgeons. head gardeners, nursery owners. You name it, and there has been a professional with the opinion that the culprit mentioned above, along with the so called professional tree surgeon that must have carried the work, should face a seriously heavy penalty. A jail term perhaps? The local authority appear somewhat predictably to be dragging their heals on the 'appropriate action' front.

We live and work in an area of the south coast where developers are like ants on the ground, and in particular one of our work areas Sandbanks.

Earlier in my career, I was fortunate enough to live and work at Compton Acres Gardens in the days when it was a proper estate, with a beautiful old house at the centre, and a team of dedicated gardeners. Sadly, in it's latter years while I was still there a developer bought the estate, and started to destroy it with the building of vast houses, and two huge blocks of flats right where the beautiful house once stood. Some of the gardeners left, others were 'let go', so that the staff were reduced to an absolute minimum. I stuck it out for a few years, as I loved the gardens and the life that they had given me, but there came a point at which there was just no soul left in the place, and they became like a dull necklace wrapped around the various building within. Both myself and Amanda left in 1997. Other owners have come and gone since, all in the property development business somewhere, and each has built yet more around and into the gardens. While there I saw scores of old trees being cut down to make way for the houses.

In my gardening days, time and time again I have witnessed trees 'accidentally' felled by developers, and as the area holds a blanket conservation status, most had/have TPO's on them. There are of course penalties for such illegal acts, and fines can be at the discretion of those in power, but a fine of £10,000 to £50.000 makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to a developer who is making twenty or thirty times that on the property.

It makes my blood boil.

But it also makes me sad, for those beautiful trees that have taken so long to grow.

I could spout off about the whole issue of the environment and global warming now, but I would be here until the New Year. What I would like to see, at least in the short term, are developers showing a heck of a lot less greed, so that they might see the world through eyes that can actually see and understand the natural world around them better. Maybe make that house or block of flats, or housing estate a little smaller, so that most of the existing trees can remain.

It appears that the beautiful 200 year old redwood was also outside the fenced off area of the building site, and it has been reported that the developer was in the process of taking down yet more trees when the local authority 'asked' him to stop, pending an investigation.

If fines aren't enough, I have the solution.