Maintaining and increasing tree canopy cover is essential to Merton’s health and wellbeing. Trees perform many vital services – abating rising urban heat island effects, filtering air pollution, cooling the streets in summer both for us and our canine friends, reducing the risk of flash flooding, supporting biodiversity, and more besides. Many people appreciate that planting whips is no substitute for ancient and established trees, but perhaps the magnitude of this inequivalence is not fully grasped. It can take tens, if not hundreds, of saplings to achieve the same positive climate and nature impacts as an established tree, and take decades for a new tree to mature to the performance level of an established tree. In light of this, we find that the importance of safeguarding existing trees cannot be overstated, and only in genuinely extraordinary circumstances can it be deemed acceptable to sanction the removal of an existing tree. The older the tree, the more important its protection.

We will review the Council’s Tree Strategy to ensure that it is ambitious, comprehensive, sustainable, and updated as progress is made. For example:

• The planting of street trees should be substantially beyond the replacement of losses due to storm damage, disease and decay.
• The management of street trees should be sound, with tarmacked tree pits banned, and contractors given explicit directions on leaving minimum areas around tree trunks free of metal.
• All planning applications should require applicants to provide precise and auditable details of trees and shrubs of more than a certain volume and trunk girth that may be impacted by the proposed development, and how the level of tree canopy cover and plant density will be maintained in the development, if not increased. Stringent penalties should be applied where work deviates from the plan’s stated impact.
• Individuals, communities and businesses who want to plant trees should be encouraged and, if possible, assisted by the Council.