Survey planned to find St Helier's best... trees!

Wednesday 20 January 2016

A local charity hopes to see a change in the law to protect more trees in town and that could improve our health.

Jersey Trees for Life are branching out this summer and doing a big tree survey to find out exactly what species we've got growing in St Helier.

Conrad Evans said: “It’s about protecting our trees in town and knowing what we have, to see if populations are decreasing or increasing.

“It could flag up something interesting, some rare species that we could have protected. There is no provision in the law for amenity, you can have trees protected for their wildlife value if it’s a valuable habitat but the survey could lead to a law change to protect more trees in town.

“They could have amenity value if they give shade, protection, if they soften a bare street or help to hide or screen a not-so-attractive building to add a bit more to the streetscape.

“It’s well known that the presence of trees in cities improves people’s health. In some boroughs in London there are less visits to the doctor, less drugs prescribed for depression.

“Trees provide shade, amenity, a place for wildlife and the roots will absorb water so there’s less chance of flooding.”

Mr Evans said trees have more of a hard time growing in town where people are pushing for more space. 

"It’s a finite space, they would rather remove a tree for a car parking space, they are more precious in a built up area. There are also people who won’t promote trees because of the effect of their roots on pipes and services in town.

"Trees also harbour birds who leave droppings on cars so they do get a bad name so you have to have the right tree in the right place.

"I know of instances where there are terraces where trees have died at the end of their useful life and they aren’t going to be replaced.

The charity hopes to use a £3,000 states grant and take on an intern this summer to carry out the survey when there are leaves on the trees and they are more easily identifiable.

Mr Evans said: “We’d be concentrating initially on the ringroad from St Saviour leading into St Helier but we’d try and do the whole of town.”