Green Party Councillor Richard Longstaff has successfully driven significant enhancements to Southend City Council’s tree policy, with plans to increase the city’s tree canopy cover from 12% to at least 15%.

Discussions around the Green Party’s ambitious tree motion are finally gaining momentum, with Portfolio Holder Cllr Lydia Hyde recently announcing a comprehensive set of measures. While the motion was not debated at this month’s Full Council meeting, Cllr Longstaff’s proposals include tighter scrutiny on tree removals, planting thousands of new trees citywide, and introducing an interactive map for residents —all now under development by the administration.

“I’m encouraged by the administration’s commitment to my proposals after the inaction by the previous leadership. There’s still work to do, particularly on tree removal oversight which ideally should be brought to Place Scrutiny. Things are now moving in the right direction after years of lobbying, and I look forward to collaborating to enhance our tree canopy for future generations.

“That said, I will be the first to hold the administration to account if they fail to deliver on these pledges.

“I’m also glad to see a firm commitment from the leader to finally bring real trees to the High Street. This is a welcome step forward, especially after the Tories’ absurd proposal for fake trees at the last Full Council meeting.”

Cllr Richard Longstaff

The Green Party will remain focused in holding the administration to account, championing both social and environmental justice at every step.

– ENDS –

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Concerns are mounting over the continued decline of Southend’s urban tree population and the city’s tree canopy cover, which has fallen to around 12%, far below the minimum target of 15%.

A recent council motion to address these pressing issues has stalled, leaving environmental activists, councillors, and residents frustrated by the lack of progress.

In September 2023, Southend City Council approved a motion to protect and expand the city’s tree population. The motion proposed crucial updates to the city’s tree policy, including the introduction of a comprehensive methodology toolbox, the formation of a scrutiny working party, and a commitment to plant thousands of new trees across the city. However, despite unanimous support in the chamber, the motion has since been rejected by the previous Conservative administration, leaving all aspects of it unimplemented.

“The cabinet’s decision to let this vital motion fall into the abyss is a huge disservice to our city.

Ironically, everyone initially approved it, yet no action has been taken to protect and preserve our trees.”

Cllr Richard Longstaff, Leigh Ward

Southend’s tree population, which is currently estimated at 29,000, is under increasing threat. Around 300 trees are felled each year, some of which could be saved with better management practices. The city’s diminishing tree canopy cover is of particular concern, as it takes decades for newly planted trees to reach maturity. To restore the tree canopy to a healthier level of 17%, Southend would need to plant approximately 12,000 trees—a task that would take over a century if only 100 trees are planted annually.

“We are losing so many mature  trees for various reasons and they  can’t be simply replaced by saplings. At this rate of removal, it will take 120 years to reach our target of 17%.”

“We need to plant thousands of trees now for future generations to benefit, especially as climate change continues to accelerate extreme weather and  heatwaves, that are a critical risk to health and wellbeing of Southend’s residents.”

The motion also highlighted the need for a proactive response to tree diseases, calling for the council to collaborate with Defra’s Forest Research to ensure that any suspected cases are thoroughly investigated through lab testing. The council further called for clarity regarding tree removal decisions, citing concerns about trees being felled for vague reasons such as “incompatibility with highways.”

Councillor Longstaff is now urging Southend to take bold steps to protect its tree canopy cover and green spaces. The motion proposes entering into a collaborative Knowledge Transfer Partnership with specialist institutions such as Anglia Ruskin University’s Global Sustainability Institute and Writtle College. This partnership would help develop a best-practice methodology toolbox for managing the city’s trees, ensuring that tree removal is only used as a last resort.

The Green Party’s motion is also calling for the creation of an interactive, publicly accessible map to identify potential tree-planting locations and for all mature trees on the removal list to be subject to democratic debate at a relevant committee or working party.

“This is a moment for Southend to become a trailblazer in urban tree preservation, by taking a new approach and collaborating with key partners, we can secure a greener future for our city.”

Read the motion

– ENDS –

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Residents on Leigh Hall Road (Leigh) and Ilfracombe Road (Kursaal) have breathed a sigh of relief after discovering tree removal notices on every tree last Tuesday, stating that they would be felled this coming Wednesday, giving just a week’s notice.

These notices come just days after the Council outraged residents by removing seven mature Ash trees in Vernon Road to make footway resurfacing easier. Local resident, Simon Gittus organised a petition of over 200 residents, urging the council to reconsider those plans, but the Labour-run City Council ignored residents and axed them anyway.

“I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the notices last Tuesday, these trees are collectively over 3,000 years old – they are our natural assets – and I’m grateful to hear that they are staying.

We were all thinking the worst could actually happen, especially after the Vernon Road tree removal fiasco where 7 mature Ash trees were removed for pavement works, and weren’t listed on the tree removal website due to an ‘admin error’.”

Simon Gittus, Green Party Activist

Green Party Councillor for Leigh Ward, Cllr Richard Longstaff says,

“After much panic, I’m thankful these wonderful, mature trees aren’t coming down. It took the council officers two days to finally confirm these notices were put up in ‘error’, causing unnecessary stress to residents and the community.

“I will be looking for answers as to why this happened; were they actually going to cut them down and backtracked when they saw the outrage, or was it simply miscommunication between the council and it’s outsourced tree removal consultant”

Fellow Green Councillor, Stuart Allen says, “I found out on Tuesday afternoon from a fellow councillor during work. There was very little detail on what was going on, so we all had no option but to assume the worst at that stage and wait days for answers. This simply cannot happen again.”

Cllr Longstaff continues, “My motion, which was approved by full council last September, would have put a stop to having to constantly look over your shoulder, but both the Tories and Labour have ignored the will of the people and the full council that represents them.”

The Green Party will continue to push to save these trees through all measures. The administration should be under no illusion that they can remove Southend’s trees without proper scrutiny.

– ENDS –

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The South East Essex Green Party and local residents have voiced their “incredible disappointment” in Southend City Council after the Labour Council ignored a petition signed by hundreds of residents and cut down seven mature ash trees in Vernon Road.

A petition was set up by resident and local Green activist, Simon Gittus, after he was made aware of the mature trees potential demise.

“I was devastated to hear the news, and instantly tried to do something to stop the chop. My grandparents lived on Vernon Road and I have fond memories of these trees as a kid. Unfortunately, the council has ignored the petition and has taken the wrong decision to axe the trees.

These trees, much loved by residents, are now gone forever. Any saplings planted now will take decades to reach the same maturity as the ones axed. This has a serious and irreversible impact on air pollution, biodiversity, and the visual character of this residential area.”

Simon Gittus, Green Party Activist

A public argument between Green activists and the City Council has now broken out. Removal notices were displayed on the trees themselves, but were not listed on the City Council’s website due to an “admin error”. Following public upset, the Council now claims that the trees were infected with ‘Ash Dieback’ but the council has yet to produce any evidence of test results for the disease.

Leigh Councillor for the Green Party, Cllr Richard Longstaff says;

“The story keeps changing; firstly it was about pavements, then it was conveniently Ash Dieback, then the trunks were too large in diameter – the Council knows they’ve messed up and are clutching straws to find anything that may justify their actions.

“As a council we need to be transparent with the public, especially when we are removing our community’s natural assets. It is worrying that the council officers did not place notice of their removals on the website – I dread to think how many trees are being removed without residents being informed.

“It’s incidents like this where there has been little scrutiny in officers recommendations, or sufficient evidence provided, that encouraged me to submit my Tree Motion to Full Council last September, but unfortunately it has been kicked into the long grass by both the Tories and Labour, ignoring the will of the Councillors who voted for it over a year ago.”

The local Green Party continues to push for any tree that may be towards the end of its natural life for its decline to be properly managed, so that it is swapped out over a period of years to allow for any saplings to mature sufficiently.

– ENDS –

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Local residents have long dispaired at the City Council’s brutal “cut before complaint” approach to tree management, which has led to the unnecessary and premature removal of thousands of our City’s natural assets, worth £millions.

With cross-party support, Richard’s motion sets in motion radical changes to the way the Council manages and preserves our Trees, and sets ambitious targets to reinstate and grow our tree canopy cover, to help tackle many local issues, like air and noise pollution, urban heat stress, flooding, and to help combat climate change.

The motion passed by the council reads:

Southend’s Urban Trees:
They say an oak tree spends 300 years growing, 300 years living and 300 years dying. There are huge environmental and social implications to how a council values tree maintenance. This motion aims to improve our tree management, especially the management of declining trees, to maximise the benefits and lifespan of trees on council-owned or council-managed land.

Southend’s urban trees are assets of immense community value, providing tree canopy cover (TCC) which is proven to reduce ‘urban heat island effect’ that is the cause of an increasing number of fatalities across Europe due to climate heating.

Despite significant tree planting in recent years our TCC currently stands at 13% on average, and just 10% in Leigh-on-Sea. The value of mature trees cannot adequately be replaced by saplings so we must do more to retain our mature trees and to improve our current TCC to the Forestry Commission’s recommendation of 15% at the very least.

More trees will bring many benefits to our city such as an improvement in air quality, greater local sequestering of carbon to aid our Net Zero ambitions, and a positive effect on the mental health of local people.
To maintain and increase our TCC we must seek to prolong the lifespans of our mature trees alongside planting thousands of new ones through a variety of methods including tree planting-focused grant applications. This will require a progressive and pragmatic approach to tree management and a refinement of practices with a preservation-first approach.

Therefore, Southend-on-Sea City Council resolves to:

1. Establish a biodiversity and tree retention working party with observers from external organisations with knowledge and expertise in arboriculture and biodiversity. The remit of the working party will be to consider tree management and preservation, including assessing trees marked for removal, unless there is a perceived immediate risk, and to informally advise the administration on matters of tree preservation, maintenance, and biodiversity.
2. Invoke an immediate moratorium on tree felling where there is not an immediate risk to the public until there has been a review of existing practices around maintenance and retention of highways trees to develop an alternative methodology toolbox to align with best practice under the Tree Design Action Group, the Forestry Commission and the Tree Council of Great Britain.
3. Embed quality assurances procedures within a tree retention policy as part of best practice so that common scenarios can be actioned quickly and without ambiguity.
4. Continuously seek funding opportunities to bid for to plant new trees.
5. Review potential planting locations across the city and keep an up-to-date map for the use of tree officers and highways surveyors.
6. Where practicable, seek to plant replacement trees as far in advance as possible of a removal.
7. Where practicable, plant larger, more mature trees in build-outs at the end of double yellow line demarcations to alleviate pressure on our drainage system from stormwater attenuation and to preserve the integrity and longevity of our highways trees and nearby footpaths.

This is the first motion put to Southend City Council by the Green Party, and we’re delighted to report it was passed with cross-party support.

The results of the vote were as follows:

FOR:
Cllr Richard Longstaff (Proposer)
Cllr Steve Aylen (Seconder)
Cllr Martin Berry
Cllr Margaret Borton
Cllr Laurie Burton
Cllr Paul Collins
Cllr Daniel Cowan
Cllr Tricia Cowdrey
Cllr Matt Dent
Cllr Fay Evans
Cllr Stephen George
Cllr Ian Gilbert
Cllr John Harland
Cllr Lydia Hyde
Cllr Anne Jones
Cllr Gabriel Leroy
Cllr Aston Line
Cllr Robert McMullan
Cllr Carole Mulroney
Cllr Cheryl Nevin
Cllr Mandy O’Connor
Cllr Donna Richardson
Cllr Kevin Robinson
Cllr Maxine Sadza
Cllr Mike Stafford
Cllr Martin Terry
Cllr Steven Wakefield
Cllr Nick Ward

AGAINST:
Cllr Ron Woodley

NO VOTE:
Cllr Helen Boyd
Cllr Kevin Buck
Cllr Colin Campbell
Cllr Owen Cartey
Cllr James Courtenay
Cllr Tony Cox
Cllr Meg Davidson
Cllr Alan Dear
Cllr Nigel Folkard
Cllr David Garston
Cllr Stephen Habermel
Cllr Darryl Jones
Cllr James Moyies
Cllr Daniel Nelson
Cllr Jack Warren

ENDS

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Southend Council has started 2023 with a doubling-down on their efforts to remove trees across Southend.

The Green Party has been applying pressure to Southend Council following a new string of incidents of indefensible and avoidable tree removal. Several roads across Southend, particularly Leigh, have seen the council’s yellow Tree Removal Notices being stapled to perfectly-healthy trees, earmarking them for imminent destruction.

Concerned residents have contacted the Green Party following the arrival of the notices, with many residents rightly questioning on what grounds the trees are being removed. Upon investigation, the council has used the blanket justification of “incompatible with highways works” for almost every planned removal; admitting by default that the trees are otherwise perfectly healthy.

The Green Party disputes the Council’s claim that the trees are unavoidably required for removal and are incompatible with footway standards. Many examples already exist across the city that demonstrate that mature street trees can be accommodated as part of an accessible standards-compliant pavement. The council is choosing to continue its terrible record of removing perfectly healthy trees and is subjecting residents to worsening air quality and dwindling wildlife as a direct result.

It is our view that these trees are being earmarked for destruction as a consequence of the council’s poor management and due to zero oversight or scrutiny of the tree removal process. We again face a situation whereby the council is stripping out our irreplaceable natural assets at a time of climate crisis due to poor oversight and an evident lack of due process, education, and imagination.

Phil Barwell, who is a senior Arboricultural Officer in London said in a statement to the Once Upon A Tree group:

“This approach to urban tree management is outdated and ill-informed. There is guidance available on alternative engineering solutions that can be implemented on the public highway prior to considering tree removal including footway buildout, Flexipave or Addaflex installation, and tree pit enlargement.

It is a political choice to support the removal of trees in respect of minor footway damage when there are suitable engineering solutions available to retain trees with the urban environment.”

Pil Barwell

Green Party candidate for Leigh, Richard Longstaff said:

“I understand that there is currently no director of highways, meaning there is a vacuum in leadership just as Leigh-on-Sea is having significant pavement works. This is leading to an unusually high number of perfectly-healthy street trees being removed for no other reason than arbitrary and unchecked highways dept. decisions. It shows negligence and a breakdown of leadership and management of the teams responsible for our Street Trees, from both executives and elected council members.

I would like an urgent meeting with senior management and executives at the council to outline how they will take immediate action and to reassure city residents that our street trees are safe and in good management with the appropriate ISO quality assurance, and external auditing of the teams that oversee the implementation of the council’s tree policy and processes.”

Richard Longstaff

The Green Party have demanded an immediate meeting with the Council to highlight the serious issues of their record of unnecessary and reckless tree removal. We urgently call on Southend-on-Sea City Council and Cllr Carole Mulroney, in her position as deputy leader, to again enact a moratorium on all tree felling until this situation is reviewed and a new director of highways appointed to oversee the teams on the ground.

ENDS

The post Council Continues Devastating Tree-Felling in Southend appeared first on South East Essex.

After a whole year working on this proposed policy, Southend Council has just released the Draft Policy alongside a public consultation which runs until 9 October 2020.

“NOT GOOD ENOUGH”

The South East Essex Green Party has thoroughly examined the Council’s draft policy, and we are saddened to report that the Council has completely missed a golden opportunity to make our town greener.

Despite the council’s existing “two-for-one replacement” policy being woefully substandard – a target which they hadn’t even met – this new policy will see a further slowdown in the already minimal tree planting across the borough.

By the council’s own figures, Southend’s current tree canopy coverage is just 11.95%, with wards like Westborough worst off with just 8.5%. For context, the National Urban Tree Cover average is 17%.

This new dangerously-unambitious policy aims to achieve a measly 3.05% increase to just 15% by 2050, which equates to just a 1% increase per decade.

In a time of Climate Emergency, this is simply not good enough.

Tree Canopy Cover Report by Ward (Southend Borough Council, October 2019)

Planting trees is one of the easiest ways of tackling the Climate Emergency.

Southend Council’s own draft policy lists the many vital ways in which Trees benefit residents:

“Trees play an important role within an urban environment. There has been extensive research in recent years demonstrating the significant benefits trees bring to our physical and mental health, our social and economic wellbeing, to biodiversity, to the air we breathe, and the soil beneath our feet. They help offset the effects of heavy rainfall, helping to mitigate flood risk, and offset the urban heat island effect. They capture and store carbon and particulates which pose an increasing risk to human health.“

And yet, in this policy Southend Council seeks to achieve the minutest of incremental increases in the number of trees within the borough over a ridiculously unambitious timeframe, seemingly contradicting its declaration of a Climate Emergency in 2019.

Why then, when it comes to planting trees – possibly one of the easiest, most cost-effective, and publically popular options available, is the Council so unenthusiastic and lacklustre?

In recent months, Southend Council has partially relied on supporting community groups such as Once Upon A Tree (Southend), who use charitable donations to buy saplings and whips and plant them in the town’s public parks. Volunteers have also aided the council in planting new whips in parks.

Whilst these community endeavours are to be commended, the real change needs to be in the council’s own planning priorities and culture which remain structurally unecological.

So, what options are available to Southend Council?

There are many easily-deliverable initiatives that would yield much higher canopy coverage in a much shorter timeframe, a necessity in view of impending ecological collapse, but such ideas would seem ‘unthinkable’ to a majority of existing Councillors and officers. Initiatives such as;

• Protecting agricultural and green land at Fossetts Farm, Shoebury North, and Shoebury Garrison from destructive housebuilding, and instead, using the space to ‘re-afforest’ the land creating three new large woodland parks;
• Creating new micro “Pocket Parks” on the abundance of vacant land across the borough;
• Committing to planting street trees as part of wide-ranging ‘mini-Holland’ style traffic management systems;
• Investigating a proportional reduction in on-street parking and car parks to facilitate new parks, allotments, and green spaces;
• Implementing mandatory quotas for green spaces and community planting in new large brownfield housing and commercial developments, such as the Queensway and Seaway schemes;

These are just a few of the many available options the council could implement to achieve a much higher tree canopy cover across Southend. All of these schemes would (alongside major investment in public transport) deliver better air quality, better mental health, less traffic, improved flood management, and significantly higher carbon sequestration.

The South East Essex Green Party commits to delivering all of these schemes in Southend, alongside the many other transformative proposals outlined in our Manifesto.

Nationally, The Green Party aims to plant 700 million trees by 2030, as part of our radical vision for a cleaner and greener future.

Further Reading:

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/04/planting-billions-trees-best-tackle-climate-crisis-scientists-canopy-emissions

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