Country Park vandalism

Written: 24/01/06

I've just written a Mr Angry email to Simon McIntosh, the senior officer at SCDC about what I found in the park today and I thought I'd share it here:

Hi Simon

I've just returned from walking our dog in the park. While there I met a resident whose house backs onto the park so she's a regular user. She was close to tears and I could see why. With timing I can only as extremely unfortunate your contractors chose today, only two days after a public meeting where SCDC was pleading poverty, to start hacking at trees again.

I use the word "hacking" without apology. What they appear to have been attempting is to pollard willows around the pool at the northern end of Dickersons, beyond the single bridge. They've left a mess, include one small tree which is currently leaning drunkenly over the path (which remains open to the public). There are logs in the water and an oil slick, presumably from the chain saws. One path is cut up from their vehicles and the other is covered with twigs and other small branches.

I have to question why these trees needed pollarding at all: they're not over a very publically accessible area so I would have thought they would have scored very low in a risk assessment.

I thought SCDC had learned its lesson after the furore in the village over the pollarding alongside Todds. At least I could see some reason for that, even if it did look unsightly. This time I'm at a loss to know why it's been done.

However no doubt there will be some reason in your schedule. I hope it's a very good one as from a wildlife point of view one tree in particular is (or rather was, it's trashed now) a favoured fishing roost for a kingfisher and I've stood entranced watching it from the bridge along with other park visitors on many occasions. No chance of doing that now.

I met with Simon McIntosh this morning, along with Keely Adams (the ranger wielding the radio mic on Sunday for those of you who were there). Here's the report I wrote about that meeting for the milton-chat list.

The story on these particular trees is that they did present some danger of falling (although as I pointed out they weren't very near a path, there's lots nearer that should be higher priority) but the main issue turns out to be the pool. Around the time that the park was created the pool was bubbling up "noxious" gas (I think they mean it was stagnant - there's areas in Milton Hall lake which are like that) to the point where the Environment Agency came out, did tests, and dredged the pool to reduce the leaf litter. The concern is that the trees overhanging the pool were simultaneously filling the pool with leaves and denying it sunlight to help break it down. Thus recreating the conditions they found a decade ago. So they've opened up the area to let light in.

I pointed out some other trees which I was surprised weren't a higher priority from a safety point of view as they were right next to the path and expose to the wind (on the edge of Todd's just after you come in from Old School Lane). Apparently these are about to be pollarded too. I can see some sense in doing these.

He agreed that the timing of these new works was unfortunate, only days after the meeting when he was explaining about the cutbacks, but he's got budget for this year and he's trying to use it while he can, as it's going to be more problematic in future years.

We talked about the general issue of how tree maintenance is done and in particular how trimmings are left. There's a feeling that I and others have had for a while that there's a deliberate policy of trying to exclude people from any area away from the path by the way trimmings are laid. We went and looked at one area in particular where this was the case, where a path appeared to have been deliberately blocked. It turned out that this was indeed the intention - to prevent unauthorised fishing from the area beyond it. We discussed whether policy might be to not block paths unless there was a good reason to do so.

We also talked in general about the park and some of the feedback Simon got from the forms you filled in at Sunday's meeting. Ideas he mentioned, some of which he liked, were picnic tables at the Fen Road end, play equipment for older children, and a sculture park at the A14 end. I also mentioned the BMX mound at Hinchingbrooke as a potential way of providing play equipment to older children for little expense.

I confess I'm still not too pleased about what's gone on, but at least I understand where they're coming from now and my thanks to Simon and Keely for taking the time to talk to me.
 

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