Residents plea to Newark and Sherwood District Council to save trees at The Bearings, on Bowbridge Road and Lime Grove

Residents made an impassioned plea to councillors to save trees from a development.

A presentation was made to a Newark and Sherwood District Council meeting by Katie Greenfield, asking the councillors to save the trees bordering the site of The Bearings, on Bowbridge Road and Lime Grove.

She also presented the council with a petition containing 736 signatures from residents appealing for the trees to be saved.

It included 25 pages of comments from residents, some of which stated: “Please keep the trees for our wellbeing” and “the trees are a haven for wildlife, which will be even more critical once the site is developed.”

A planning application from Countryside Properties was approved in January by the council’s planning committee for 12 one-bedroom flats, 33 two-bedroom houses, 13 three-bedroom houses and four four-bedroom houses to be built on The Bearings site.

Perrmission was also given for eight trees to be felled as part of the development, under the condition that no hedge or tree should be felled during the bird nesting period between March and August, unless otherwise agreed in writing by the council.

Katie said: “We understand the need for developing affordable housing, we don’t have a problem with this, but we need to preserve the trees that we can, for our own mental health and well-being as well as for the environment.

“To survive the threat of climate breakdown, we are going to need all the trees we can get.”

Despite the agreement that no trees would be removed during the nesting period, some of the trees were felled at the beginning of April, and the district council issued a temporary stop notice requiring these works to cease for 28 days.

Council leader Mr David Lloyd replied to Katie’s presentation, and confirmed that some of the trees would be replaced.

He said: “We are grateful that you alerted us to the fact that the trees were being felled, some of the work started before it was supposed to and we were deeply frustrated. All of us reflect that if breaching planning controls was criminal offence, many fewer would happen. But they are civil so we have to take it forward best we can.”

The petition was referred for consideration at the next meeting of the planning committee.

There was also a question by ten-year-old John Samye, who asked the council: “Why are you allowing so many healthy trees to be cut down in Newark when the government says we are in a climate change emergency, and the UN says we only have 11 years to limit climate change catastrophe?”

Mr Lloyd said that he was delighted to see the engagement of young people in this matter.

He said: “You refer to many healthy trees, where there is tree loss, we as a council require replacement and as a whole we prevent tree loss. We have put out tree prevention orders, and as a landowner, in the last year we have planted 18 large trees and 770 young trees and hedgerows in open spaces including oak, rowan, silver birch and hawthorn.

“In terms of what we do, we are partnered with the RSPB, Forestry Commission and the Woodland Trust, and we are aiming to get a massive tree planting commission going.”