Man saves tree that is causing subsidence at his property
A MAN whose house is being damaged by a 120-year-old tree took out an injunction in the early hours of the morning to stop his council felling it.
Andrew Brenner lodged an injunction in the early hours of Wednesday to stop Haringey council chopping down the plane tree in Stroud Green, north London, without giving notice to other parties.
Mr Brenner lives behind the tree that Aviva/allianz, his insurance company, says is causing his house to subside.
The local authority had seized the tree under cover of darkness on Sunday to wrong foot activists who, it said, had threatened to scale it to prevent it from carrying out the work.
The move was branded heavyhanded after the security guards were deployed to end a nearly year-long occupation of the tree by demonstrators, who had hung hammocks and signs in its branches.
A hearing at Clerkenwell County Court on Thursday, at which the council hoped to be given permission to fell the tree, was adjourned after Mr Brenner’s intervention and the injunction will stand until a further hearing expected to take place within a few weeks.
The row began last year, when Aviva/ Allianz said the tree was the primary cause of subsidence to a property it insured and demanded the council remove it, admit liability and pay it £400,000 to carry out remedial works.
HTP activists deny they had been preparing to occupy the tree with climbing ropes ahead of this week’s court hearing.
Giovanna Iozzi, a campaigner, said: “They have tried to justify it by saying that we have been putting new stuff in the tree but it is not true.
“The tree has not been physically occupied since the autumn.”
A spokesman for Allianz said: “This is a complex and ongoing case and we await the decision of the court.”
Haringey Council has approached for comment.