Burgess Park 450 trees being felled now!

All the material will be recycled in the park - logs to become informal seats or for climbing on, stag beetle loggeries and heaps of wood to be used in wildlife areas, chippings as mulches.

thats good news.the children in london need every opportunity to interact with nature, and for the chance to climb on something not made of concrete!

I'll second that, Jan.

Had this in response to my emails to the councillors. Thought I'd post it here for info. Also wanted to say thanks to all those involved in the consultation on the public's behalf. Hope the push for continued, proper maintenance is successful.

The present work taking place in Burgess Park is part of the Burgess Park Revitalisation Project. A £6m project funded by the Mayor of London and the former Aylesbury NDC, now the Creation Trust. The vision for the park is presented on the council's website and will bring about an improved Burgess Park for the local people, with an increase in the number of habitat types and overall improved park environment, with better views and access, and new facilities for young people. Please visit the council's website to see the detail for the planned changes http://www.southwark.gov.uk/info/200280/burgess_park_transformation.

The Burgess Park Revitalisation Project received unanimous planning consent at the planning committee on 1st February 2011. The plans presented in the planning application have been developed from ongoing consultation with a total of over a 1000 people consulted since 2009. Consultation has been through various means including, public events held in the park, focus group with stakeholders such as young people, environmental experts, cyclists, and anglers who use the lake. We also have a dedicated stakeholder group which is made up of the Friends of Burgess Park; local tenant and resident representatives; London Wildlife Trust; Growing Southwark; Groundwork; sports representative; representatives from Camberwell Society and Peckham Society, whom we meet with regularly.

Although regretfully there will be tree loss as part of the initial works to this project, overall we will be planting more tree and scrub and there will be a net gain in trees. The trees that will be planted in Burgess Park will be more varied in species and will include more mature specimen trees with longer life spans and we will be reusing trees where possible. We are committed to working with the community and using wildlife and environmental experts as well as council officers.

I am the project manager for the Burgess Park Revitalisation Project and can be contacted on ruth.miller@southwark.gov.uk for any matters relating to the project.

I hope I have been able to address your concerns.

Kind regards


Ruth Miller
Burgess Park Project Manager
Southwark Council
Environment & Housing Dept
Public Realm Division
PO Box 64529
London SE1 5LX
07967 662 495

Please have a look at our website to see many more documents relating to this.

www.friendsofburgesspark.org.uk

For all those coming to our meeting tonight, please see our attached agenda.


Agenda
Friends of Burgess Park
Public meeting 8th March 2011 7.00 -9.00
Community Sports Centre, Cobourg Road

Please note this is the regular monthly meeting of the Friends of Burgess Park and we have other items on our agenda that we intend to discuss at our meeting.

This meeting was not called to discuss tree issues only, and we hope that you will respect this.


1. Previous minutes 7.00 – 7.05

2. Matters arising 7.05 – 7.10

3. Finance / funding updates 7.20 – 7.30

4. Park revitalisation update 7.30 – 8.00

5. Current projects 8.00 – 9.00
• Mayfair
• Picture Burgess Park
• Community Garden
• Free Film Festival
• Surrey Canal Walk

6. AOB

7. Date of next meeting

This seems a very one sided discussion, with all of the action that is being taken by distraught residents in a last attempt to save their trees. How can be you celebrating the uses of cut trees, when it is the healthy, mature and soulful trees -living nature- that residents want to connect with?

treeconcerned wrote:

This seems a very one sided discussion, with all of the action that is being taken by distraught residents in a last attempt to save their trees. How can be you celebrating the uses of cut trees, when it is the healthy, mature and soulful trees -living nature- that residents want to connect with?

i agree, this thread has been very one-sided, possibly because many of the local residents, myself included, spent the last four days trying to stop the totally unjustifiable crimes against nature, as a friend said yesterday, leaving very little time for anything else.
there can be no excuse, certainly no 'logical' or 'financial' or 'design' or 'sustainable' explanation for removing established mature trees to replace them with other, less mature trees which will take years to fully adapt to the environment.
there can be no excuse in completely refusing to listen (and this is very much what the council, and sadly, on tuesday, friends of burgess park too, had done) to people who planted those mature trees, to children who grew up climbing those trees, to children who, until last week, played and learned from those mature trees.
i've done my best to record the last few days of burgess park on our website, the most recent article is here, http://www.peoplesrepublicofsouthwark.co.uk/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1391:burgess-park-battlegoeson&Itemid=3

Nobody's posted anything for the last 4 days so I don't think your tiny protest has anything to do with it. I counted eight people protesting in the park on Wednesday and Thursday.

Maybe the reason it is one-sided is that because once the plans for the park are explained most people realise they are entirely reasonable.

After the plans are complete there will be more trees and more scrub. There will be a greater variety of trees and they will have more opportunity to flourish because they will be planted in tree pits rather than straight into the rubble that exists under burgess park's top soil.

The plans will also bring other habitats such as reeds, wetlands and insect attracting flower gardens. In addition, they will make the park more accessible, including to wheelchair users, and there will be new play and exercise facilities.

These plans were finalised after more than a year of consultation. They have the support of the Friends of Burgess Park, local TRAs, the Camberwell Society, the London Wildlife Trust, and the Creation Trust.

Finally, the plans were unanimously approved by the planning committee after a fair process where all sides were able to make their case.

So after failing to make your case to the planning committee, why are you still trying to prevent the improvements to the park that so many local people are looking forward to?

We have not refused to listen, but why do people expect us to throw away one and a half years of work consulting on this project with local people and other groups when some angry locals turn up after the planning has been approved, and after nearly all the trees have been cut down?

Instead of 'refusing to listen', perhaps I should ask you about your 'failure to act' when something could have been done. It's all very well moaning about democracy and not being included, but there are so many ways to get involved. I know the Friends aren't cool or radical, but that doesn't mean we don't take ideas on board - just not after the event. We prefer to act when we can make a difference.

Being local residents ourselves, we've given up a hell of a lot of our free time on trying to get people involved in this project. If they can't do that until so late in the day why should they expect us to ignore everything that those involved have wanted?

We represent those people who worked with us, who made an effort to communicate with us. How on earth can we represent those who don't?

As agreed at the meeting, we took proposals and forwarded them to the council. To think that people would take a vote on something such as a judicial review, when they are not fully informed is very worrying.

How can people living in the area claim to have known nothing about the revitalisation project? There are huge purple billboards blighting the landscape that have been there for a year.

It is a shame the Friends are being scapegoated over this. We think it is a sad state of affairs if people claim to care so much, but can't mobilise themselves until it's too late.

We are not celebrating tree loss, but we see the long term project improving the park as something really worthwhile.

Hurrah for the FOBP. You have done a stellar job. I also applaud the Council who, contrary to what a small number have said, actually were helpful in winning (and matching funding) for this project and really do want to create something special.

Camberwell especially suffers from that small, militant group who simply love the idea of protesting. The fact that the small band have time to come out during the week three days running to "protest", and yet have no time to get involved otherwise, offers a clue. At least two of them are self-avowed "anarchists" (fine) which means they thrive on often protesting any and everything as their full-time "job".

On one hand, Camberwell has always been an enclave for the hippies and dis-enfranchised and god bless 'em. But it does make it difficult to progress things. I am all for consultation and scrutiny, and we have seen that for these plans. They will be even better thanks to volunteers in the FOBP and other organisations who have worked WITH the Council to improve the overall project. We did that with the St George Development and The Baths (both projects also had to suffer the small group of naysayers who would never be happy).

So let them protest. They are very small in number and their misinformation for the sake of keeping up the "fight against the system" is already coming back to show them as roadblocks and not community minded individuals. At times it has become silly, even near criminal. But we'll get there and thanks to the selfless true community heroes who are making it happen.