• TONY Kerpel’s magnificent letter (February 23) commenting on the apparently needless destruction of a mature street tree in Downside Crescent by Camden tree section, made a good point.

Before it disappeared, it was also “lopped” and disfigured by a tree-trimming firm who do not bother about maintaining the shape of trees, let alone their actual lives!

It is by no means the only tree in Belsize Park which has received the same treatment and once this “lopping” has been executed, the natural shape of the tree, if not its very life, is forever distorted or threatened.

Just around the corner from Downside Crescent in Lawn Road, two tall Lombardy poplars, punctuating a famous view of our most distinguished Grade I-listed Isokon flats built in 1934, have also been hideously disfigured by what I presume can only be a misguided form of “economy” by whoever guards that property.

Similar disgraceful disfiguration has been dished out to several ancient lime trees bordering the lawns in front of Troyes House, another historic building at the other end of Lawn Road. Both Downside Crescent, and Lawn Road and Upper Park Road are in the Parkhill Conservation Area, originally part of the historic 18th-century Lord Chesterfield’s estate like the rest of Belsize Park west of Haverstock Hill.

Why are these disfigured trees being allowed by the officers of the council in Parkhill conservation area? Councillors and officers are under a legal obligation to uphold the agreed conservation area standards and so, appropriately, maintain for the future the beautiful architecture and trees of this part of London?

GENE ADAMS
Belsize Conservation Area Advisory Committee