Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Protest over ‘senseless’ plan to chop down city centre trees
Protestors gathered in the city centre to call for the council to scrap plans to cut down mature trees lining the high street.
The five long-standing trees in St George’s Street have been described as “the lungs of the city”.
But they are set to be ripped up and replaced with 14 “semi-mature trees”, as part of the city council’s £1 million project to transform the “tired and dated” area into a “leafy boulevard”.
The plan has sparked outrage across the city, with a petition calling on the council to leave the trees garnering more than 4,000 signatures in a fortnight.
Protestors gathered in St George’s Street at midday on Saturday before marching to a large tree at the junction of Rose Lane and St George’s Street, where speeches were given.
But Green Party organisers have been forced to defend the protest after criticism from city council leader Ben Fitter-harding.
The Conservative says organisers “wilfully misled” the public, by gathering around an often-photographed tree that is not set to be felled.
“I’m disappointed that the protestors wilfully misled the public by focusing on a large, prominent and beautiful tree that is not being removed,” said Cllr Fitter-harding.
Canterbury District Green Party spokesman Anna Peckham says the location was chosen due to crowd concerns.
She explained that the protest started at a large tree near Fenwick which is due to be cut down.
“This area is quite restricted and we were concerned that a large group of people at this site might cause obstruction and impede Christmas shoppers in this very busy area,” she said.
“Also concerned about rising Covid rates, we decided to walk down St George’s Street, past the trees which are coming down to the end tree where there is more space in Longmarket.
“We made it very clear that the tree at this end was remaining.”
Hundreds of passers-by wrote messages on yellow cards which were then tied to the tree with yellow ribbon.
Mrs Peckham added: “People put messages on this tree as a symbol of what they felt about the St George’s Street trees. In no way was this misleading. It was made clear which trees were
‘We have to ensure these trees remain part of our future as they are threatened’
going. There was no wilful misleading at any point.”
Whitstable author Julie Wassmer spoke at the protest saying: “Trees are not only essential for life, but they give us a link between the past, present and the future.
“We have to ensure these trees remain part of our future because they are threatened.”
Canterbury District Green Party and other supporters of the protest are calling for an immediate halt to the planned felling of five trees, which include two ash, two lime and one silver maple.
Canterbury City Council says the petition “will be considered in due course”.
A spokesman added: “The project to enhance St George’s Street has now been approved by a majority of councillors on three separate occasions at the various committees, so all of the matters raised in the petition have been properly considered with the support of an extensive officer report.
“We have also carried out two public consultations and in the most recent one, 67% of people agreed that improvements are needed to St George’s Street to some extent and 58% supported removing five trees and planting 14 new ones.
“While we will remove one tree near Fenwick and four others in two groups of two in that section of St George’s Street, the 14 new semi-mature trees will be planted in a new avenue, with the intention of creating a much softer, greener and leafy feel along the entire length of the street.
“The committee report also made it clear that from the second decade onwards, the new trees will be sequestering carbon
at a higher rate than the existing trees.
“Overall, the improved layout of the area is being designed to bring environmental benefits including increasing the summer cooling and shade during the projected hotter drier summers, making the area more attractive to move through and visit by pedestrians, and increasing the number of trees in the centre of the city.”
On Saturday, protesters publicised Cllr Fitter-harding’s mobile phone number, so members of the public could send him selfies and messages asking him to save the trees that are due to be felled.
The city council leader says he received more than a dozen messages that day, after his number was shared.
“I had about 15 messages in total, and took the opportunity to explain to those who had got in touch that the tree that was the focal point of the protest is actually not being removed at all,” he said.
“Several of the messages were from the organisers of the protest. They agreed to move the messages people had left and my number to a different tree at the end of the day.
“It’s hard when you’re looking after your children on the Saturday before Christmas and you’re getting messages like the ones that I was receiving.
“It’s not in my nature to ignore such things, but it took me away from valuable and often all too scarce family time.
“I wish the Green Party organisers had been more considerate and asked people to email me instead.”
But Mrs Peckham defended the tactic, saying: “The phone number on the sign was the one that is publicly available on the council website, for council business.
“This is the only number given as a contact for the public, so not a personal phone number.
“People feel very strongly about this issue and some chose to contact the leader of the council to express their concerns.”
She added that she and other protestors returned to remove the messages from the Rose Lane tree on Saturday afternoon.
Cllr Fitter-harding added that he has no authority to overturn the decision on the St George’s Street makeover, which has already been taken by city councillors.
“It’s a shame that the protestors didn’t take a greater interest back when the council consulted on the scheme, where 58% supported the specific proposal to replace the five trees with the avenue of 14 new ones,” he said.
“Both the Greens and Labour were calling on me to ‘listen to the people,’ when they’re very deliberately ignoring them.”