Agenda item

6.1  Des Waters, Head of Public Realm, briefed the sub-committee on the timetable for consulting on an update tree management strategy.  The current strategy had been adopted in December 2010 with a commitment to review and update it, which was now in hand.  The tree strategy and the open space strategy were both programmed for decision at the December meeting of the council’s cabinet.  It was not proposed to make major challenges to the strategy this time, but to gather in comments from stakeholders.

6.2  He explained that the council had previously taken a more reactive approach to tree management, often in response to complaints.  The 2010 strategy took a more proactive and risk-based approach, which created a more efficient workflow for the contractor.  The council spent approximately £1M per annum on tree management and with the current strategy this meant that about 70% was spent on survey and planned work and 30% on reactive work.

6.3  The chair asked the head of public realm to talk through the major issues he expected to be raised by the current review.  The head of public realm responded that the shift from a reactive to proactive approach had required the tree service to prioritise risk and place a lower priority on the more minor complaints such as trees interfering with TV signals.  Trees were only felled when they were found to be dead, dying or causing a danger to people or property.

6.4  Councillor McNally commented that residents perceived a net loss of trees.  The management plan seemed to include felling trees but not replacing them.  The head of public realm responded that the asset management approach applied as a result of the tree strategy had uncovered more problems that the service had previously been aware of.  He explained that the council’s commitment was to seek to replace trees wherever they were felled, but resources did not permit this to be guaranteed.  There had been a lot of fresh planting in recent years using funding from a variety of sources, and the council needed to monitor this and consider the impact these trees would have on their locations in 20-30 years. 

6.5  Councillor Brown asked how the consultation meetings would work.  Des Waters explained that officers would go through key highlights of the current strategy – focussing on areas such as the felling policy and the tree replacement programme.  The meetings would be announced on the council’s website and advertised to ward councillors, friends groups and other stakeholders.  There would also be a questionnaire running on the website covering the same issues. 

6.6  Councillor Seaton asked how many trees were in the borough and their asset value.  Des Waters responded that the there were around 90,000 trees in Southwark and of these around 57,000 were owned by the council.  The CAVAT (Capital  Asset Value for Amenity Trees) formula was the commonly used method for assessing the value of trees.  This had last been calculated in 2010 and provided a value of £440M. 

6.7  Councillor Neale asked what sorts of complaints were typically made about trees.  He was interested in putting forward positive suggestions – for example could local communities adopt tree pits and would the council be able to recognise such pits and not interfere with them.  He was also keen to know which trees were recommended for urban environments.  The head of public realm said that the tree strategy provided an index of all the trees and mapped where they were.  The policy was “the right tree in the right place”, i.e. native and appropriate to the setting.  In terms of complaints, insurance complaints had been going down.  There were regular complaints about loss of light, interference with TV signal, obstruction of views, leaves blocking gutters, sticky pavements from tree sap.  Most of these complaints were low priority.