Trees go and come at Bannatyne's

To misquote Duncan Bannatyne on Dragon's Den, "We're out"... or so say ten trees at his health club on Redland Road!

They've put in a planning application to remove ten trees in order to expand their car park. That's the bad news. The good news is that they are promising to plant 14 (or 15 or maybe 16 - it's not entirely clear) new trees once the works are complete. This is a massive improvement on their original request, which was to remove seven trees without replacement.

I've been discussing this with our local 'tree champion', Clive Stevens. Clive has done a collosal amount to promote trees in the Redland and Cotham community and I rely heavily on him to tell me what's good and what's not good. He's mapped all the street trees in the area and keeps a regular eye on them, while also arranging for new ones (like on the Redland Hill roundabout) to be planted whenever possible.

A year or so back, Clive and I worked closely on the Council's new policy for tree replacements through planning applications. The previous policy was a simple one-out-one-in, which meant that a 100 year old tree could be replaced at marginal cost by a sapling. The new policy means that the number of replacements is dictated by the age and size of those being removed.

This is why the Bannatyne's plan requires more replacements than removals, effectively increasing the number of trees in the city over time. Most of the ones that they are wanting to take out are small, but there is also a large ash which is nearing the end of its life anyway - this one's worth several new trees.

At the moment, on advice from Clive, I am minded not to object to the application as it's a good example of the new policy in action. It should also have the positive effect of taking some cars off Redland Road, which is particularly dangerous in that section. However, happy to hear other views before I take a final decision.

The application is still pending: its reference number 11/03858/F and you can e-mail comments to development.management@bristol.gov.uk. I suggest that you have a look at the plans before commenting and you can find them by following the link at the start of this paragraph.