A round-up of Save Our Street Trees news, activities and campaigning work over the summer
Community group
Our biggest news this month was that Save Our Street Trees became a constituted community group! After four years campaigning for street trees in Northampton as just one individual and a handful of volunteers, this was a real milestone. Read more here.
Grants
We are currently applying for a up to three grants to try and raise funds for tree planting in Northampton. These include the Idverde Community Investement Fund and an EnviroGrant Scheme.
Watering , watering and more watering!
The hot, dry weather has continued to make our local tree wardens work hard. They’ve done an amazing job keeping the new trees in Far Cotton watered. They are still looking green and lush. We are incredibly grateful to Northampton’s Idverde for donating a load of bark. We used this as a mulch to help retain moisture and keep weeds down. If you need tips on watering young, urban trees, read our blog post of tips here.
Trees in need
In July, we supported Buddies of Beckets with its campaign to get a 200-year-old horse chestnut along Billing Road saved. Sadly, the Planning Department gave permission for it to be removed, despite 120 letters of objection. We have been in contact with Abington Dental Practice, which owns the land the tree is on, to discuss getting a sapling, seed or a piece of wood from the tree. Our hope is this can be replanted or gifted back to the community. Northampton Urbansketchers painted some beautiful artwork to memorialise the tree (see our Facebook post below).
We’ve also been in talks with Northampton County Council about replacing a tree in Kingsley, which had to be removed due to disease. We are currently waiting to hear back on this, so watch this space for updates.
We were very upset one of the new trees in Penrhyn Road had three branches removed recently (see picture below). The main stem and two branches were chopped so a resident’s newly fitted satellite dish “got a better signal”. We spoke to the householder and explained how important it is to leave the new trees alone. These young trees were not only costly (and took four years to get planted) but have been grown and trained for a decade to perfect the conical shape for urban areas.
It was lovely to hear that our tree warden Justina has grown a beautiful sapling from an acorn. It was harvested from the felled Three Oaks of Higham (see below). We think ‘Son of Three Oaks’ is pretty special and will keep you posted on his progress.
Justina hopes he’ll be planted somewhere in Higham so the community can watch a new oak take root. The wood from Three Oaks is being made into benches and sculptures for the local area too (see the picture below).
Save our Street Trees in the news
SOST was excited to be interviewed by a The Sunday Times journalist in August. The journalist asked us about how our campaign engages with the community. It’s hoped our interview will be part of a forthcoming feature about trees.
A magazine feature about urban trees and their wellbeing benefits, written by our founder (and journalist) Alice Whitehead, will appear in the August edition of Breathe magazine. The issue is on sale August 22.
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