Development still prioritises the built environment
In May 2025, the Abbey Church ruins looked better than they had in years. The laburnums that once framed the derelict church however were long ago removed—ineptly or indifferently—by one of the site’s many owners, whose interests seemed more pecuniary than protective. Or perhaps they just hated trees. Plenty do, especially in their own—or their neighbour’s—gardens.
I cycled the Conservation Area that sunny day, hunting for mature trees and any with TPOs. Most of the trees with protection—some exceptions—sit behind private walls. Even so, they quietly make the public realm more bearable: lifting the skyline over those classical walls, casting welcome shade, sometimes cooling our streets.
That said most of the specimens I clocked were not protected and among them the much-maligned sycamore (Acer pseudoplatanus)—seemingly despised almost as much as Leylandii. (A tree is a tree, I would have thought and there are plenty of very fine pseudoplatanus that can think of). And Norway Maple, which doesn’t look great as great as something local, like Betula pendula. Our local alba species is especially likeable.
By mid-August it is usually the end of summer here (festival-goers will confirm), but this was another long, hot one. I re-visited the Abbey Church. The pictures say it all.
One solitary oak now holds the traffic island, but its still very much a young thing – a miracle it has survived unscathed, unlike some other Jubilee specimens around the county. Some scrappy shrubs survived the sad chainsaw incursion (massacre is a bit strong but it sounded like one); but little else did.
More room for tarmac and parking—acres of it of it I suppose. Give it time and someone will ask why that oak “obscures” Thomas Hamilton’s church, which few cared about until it became picturesque ruin (objectively not one of Hamilton’s finer pieces but a sympathetic addition to the streetscape all the same esp. if viewed in the round – from behind!). As for the oak, who knows a petition will follow; Facebook will adjudicate; the oak will go—replaced by more parking, or another playpark for 3–13s. Christmas lights will return, of course, powered—heroically—by 100% renewables. Yes, the future is going to be green. Violent, lurid shades of it.
How many trees are truly protected around here? Very few, I suspect. Public information is scant. We’ll have to ask.
You must consult the council before tree work, and there’s a big fine if you don’t, but consultation isn’t protection and ELC are happy to explain that they have little or no capacity for enforcement. Which will make developers happy, and all of us poorer.