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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

The latest on Harringay's street trees:

This is to inform you that 2 trees are being removed shortly within Harringay Ward

These trees are subject to an insurance claim against the council.

OS 57 Wightman Road

OS 86 Falkland Road

Based on the available evidence a claim against the Council is likely to succeed on the balance of probabilities The presence of roots and desiccated soil together with the cyclical movement demonstrated by the monitoring data suggests that the Council's implicated trees are contributing towards the damage. The council has attempted to retain the trees by means of pruning, however this has not prevented the trees from causing further damage.

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Please could you provide the original link for this - many thanks

No original link. One of the team at Haringey keeps HoL in the loop via emails. What are you after, Adam?

I'll DM thanks

I’m so surprised the tree outside 86 Falkland is being removed. Is this the one you mentioned a few weeks ago Adam?

Might be...

You have my sympathies for any damage to your property, however this statement is simply not true: "The council has attempted to retain the trees by means of pruning, however this has not prevented the trees from causing further damage."

This was only raised in August, and as you say in your comment elsewhere in this thread, the council acted very fast. Too fast perhaps?

"...70% of the cases a tree is the cause of any damage" What of the 30%? As you say, it has been a very dry summer; I have a crack in my upstairs landing which over the years I have lived here, has behaved in the same way (opened in summer, tightened in winter). This year it widened noticeably for longer and I put it down to the dry weather.

Does the presence of tree roots in your front garden immediately attribute the damage to the street tree? It was planted c 2008 - I would have thought this was a time post the council planting inappropriate street trees. Are the roots attributed to the street tree or could they have been from nearby planting?

This is one of the nicer street trees in Falkland and it would be a real shame to loose it. I will write to the council requesting a stay of execution and pollard appropriately before any drastic action is taken.

I know this has been covered elsewhere but is there anything we can do to replace a tree that is removed? I vaguely recall it only being possible via the council at a considerable premium, is that correct? Or can I buy an approved variety and donate it for planting/plant it myself?

This is all the fault of the insurance companies. Faced with a claim for subsidence or cracks due to seasonal movement in the clay soils around here (where most houses are late Victorian, which were built with much shallower foundations than would now be permitted), the default position of insurance companies is to blame street trees, in an attempt to shift responsibility to the local council, and thus minimise anything they have to pay for. This happens all over the UK. If insurance companies (very quick to take your money for premiums, very slow to pay out on any claim) had their way, their would be no trees in any London street. Of course, if they tried this in a wealthier part of the borough, they would find more local opposition, and it would be harder to get away with.

One does wonder about the extent to which the action taken on street trees is in proportion to the threats they pose. If it’s very much misguided, there must have been some fact-based challenges made to what is the emerging orthodoxy of removal. Anyone know of anything?

I’m also minded to wonder if your claim about a disparity in street tree removal between wealthier and less wealthy areas would bear scrutiny were the data to hand. I’d send an FOI but I don’t think that the time required by council officers to respond would be worth it in this instance. 

The disparity between wealthy and poorer neighborhoods and tree removals may well be  function of the distance between the tree and the building foundations. Poorer areas (observationally) have smaller gardens, bringing the building closer to the road and possibly narrower footpaths and thus closer to the tree and any roots?

Another observational (or anecdotal) contribution:-- the newer the house (another east-to-west transition, on average) the deeper the foundations?

Without giving it much thought, I'd pump for there being more new housing stock in the East of the borough. But I could be wildly out.

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