When the local council informed us that they would be renewing our pavements at the end of last year, the cover letter mentioned that “existing street trees” would be assessed, any diseased ones cut down and replaced. In the preceding week, the last remaining tree on the slope leading down to the park had been chopped down, and there was no sign of a replacement. So I emailed the person mentioned in the council letter as being in charge of the tree side of things and suggested that, as well as replacing any existing trees, additional trees could be planted on that stretch, which was now something of a desert.

One of the better legacies of the COVID pandemic is a street WhatApp group, which is usually now used for posting up artistic photos, or people asking each other for help with something, so I gave people a nudge on that to also contact the council and request a tree. This really took off and several people did; one even mapping out all possible sites for one, with several asking for one outside their house, others saying no thanks. There was a general consensus that people wanted flowering cherries.

A few weeks after the end of the repaving, seven slender cherry saplings were planted in a morning. There is something exhilarating about bringing a sterile bit of pavement to life, even in a small way. One of my neighbours said it really made him happy to walk past them. And its good to think that, other things being equal, they will still bearound, and flowering every Spring, and putting a little spring in peoples’ steps, for the next hundred years or more. We’ve been advised to water them, as you can’t overwater street trees apparently, and people on the WhatsApp group have stepped up to do it.

Planting trees is, apparently, one of the most popular things a local council can do. I’d also suggested to them that they include a proactive prompt asking people if they wanted trees in their street every time they do a pavement upgrade, so this can be built into the strategy they already have for increasing tree cover across the borough. I’m not sure if this is happening, but it would be very useful if it is.

By contrast, this discarded Xmas tree has been put under guard by Cadent.