Heygate Estate photos in Guardian

There's a gallery of contemporary pictures of the Heygate estate on the Guardian web-site today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/gallery/2010/mar/26/elephant-castle-housing-estate-heygate-redevelopment

Wouldn't be nice if the smaller trees could be saved...digging them up with a bucket shovel thingy? Me being a bit of a totter would be around those flats to see if anything is re-usuable!

Friends have done a survey recently of the trees on the Heygate Estate - there are almost 500 mature trees, of a wide range of species. I see no reason why most of them should not be saved - but it will be up to us to ask our politicians to help us. At present I believe Lend Lease require a cleared site.

The huge number of trees in the estate can be seen clearly from aerial photos - compare and contrast with neighbouring areas! If you copy this link into your browser you'll see what I mean.
http://www.multimap.com/maps/?qs=elephant+and+castle&countryCode=GB#map=51.49293,-0.09545 and click on the "aerial" button on top left.

It would be great if you feel the same to let your councillors and MP know.

Note also that there may well be several years before building starts - chance for the council and developer to get it right.

Crikey, 500 trees are worth saving I think, where is Southwarks Tree Protection officer?

On the way home tonight saw that several large trees had been chopped down on the corner of abbey street/jamaica road, darnay house? bermondsey spa.

Hope those nice big logs find a good home...