Learn more about Penarth’s trees by MARCUS STEAD.
A widely-respected chartered forester will be giving people the chance to learn more about the different species of trees on the streets of Penarth in a guided tour on Sunday, 24th July.
Russell Horsey spent eight years as a senior arboricultural officer at Bristol City Council before becoming development director at the Institute of Chartered Foresters.
Today, he is a member of the Welsh Government Woodland Strategy Advisory Panel and works for a small urban forestry consultancy that works with non-rural communities to help them plant and maintain trees in their area.
The event is being organised by the Penarth Tree Forum, which is an offshoot of the Penarth Civic Society.
The tour begins at 2.00pm and members of the public are invited to meet shortly beforehand at the Skytown Gateway entrance to Dingle Park.
The walk, lasting roughly one hour, is free for members of Penarth Civic Society, and costs £2 for non-members.
The Victorian architects who laid out Penarth planted trees at 100-foot intervals along many of the town’s avenues, but in recent years a substantial number have been removed by Vale Council, who in many cases have not replaced them with new trees.
Anne Evans, chair of the Penarth Civic Society said: “If you look, there is a dividing line along Windsor Road. On the roads to one side, you have streets full of trees, and on the other side, where the workers lived, there are very few trees at all.
“Clearly, those in charge of creating Penarth town in the Victorian era didn’t think the workers deserved trees,” she said.
On the wider issue of tree preservation, Anne says that lack of proper tree maintenance over a long period of time has led to situations where it has been necessary to cut them down, but the biggest concern has been the state of pavements: “We have been working with the Vale Council to go through the conservation area one road at a time and look at all of the trees and look at how we can best manage them.
“In a lot of cases, there is tarmac right the way up to the trunk of the tree, which makes it inevitable that the tarmac will crack.
“If you leave a decent-sized gap of a meter around the tree trunk, you have a much better chance of the roots growing where you want them to grow,” she said.
Anne also expressed concern about the recent vandalism of a Hornbeam tree on Dyserth Road, where 18 uniform 13mm holes had been drilled in the base of the tree, with the intent of using the channels to deposit lethal chemicals into the tree, killing it.
The council obtained a CAVAT (Capital Asset Value for Amenity Tree) to assess the damage caused. Prior to the vandalism, the tree had a CAVAT value of £27,638, but the fresh assessment after the damage saw it reduced to £8,728.
Anne sent a clear warning to those intent on damaging trees: “We have lots of people who are helping to look after the trees, and we’re working with other environmental groups, so we have an awful lot of eyes and ears to the ground, and if someone thinks they’ll get away with something like that, it will be spotted,” she said.
🌟 This article first appeared in the printed edition of the Glamorgan Star on 30.06.22. Read it in print first!
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