The Purchese Street Open Green Space

• IN the space of about three years the area within half a mile of Euston will lose about 200 huge mature trees that enhance residents’ and commuters’ lives.

They will eventually, in the main, be replaced by young trees but only over a couple of decades. There will be a net loss of over 100 big trees, to be replaced elsewhere in the borough. That’s no comfort to Euston and Somers Town.

Half of this dreadful environmental loss is down to the unwelcome construction of HS2 at Euston.

But shockingly, the other half is down to the wholesale culling of trees by Camden Council itself. It’s as if they have no care for trees, despite Cllr Flick Rea’s decades-long fight on the planning committee for their preservation.

These council losses are in the Regent’s Park estate along the Hampstead Road, at Edith Neville Primary School and the total annihilation of the dozens of trees that enhance the Purchese Street Open Green Space.

There, we will be losing three dozen trees to make way for the council’s commercial development of a 25-storey block of millionaire apartments.

Interesting to note that the Conservative Party manifesto, much as one may disagree with that party, promises: “We will take action against poor air quality in urban areas. We will ensure that 1 million more are planted in our towns and cities, and place new duties on councils to consult when they wish to cut down street trees.”

Why does Camden passively condone this wholesale environmental sacrifice?

PAUL BRAITHWAITE
Chair, Camden’s Air Quality, Green Open Spaces & Trees group