THOUGHTS ON THE POLITICS AND ECONOMICS OF URBAN STREET TREES

Abstract

Summary Street trees, and especially urban street trees, provide major services to people and places. They generate local character and distinctiveness and add value to properties, and increase the desire to live or work in a particular locale. Not only that but they improve quality of life and they benefit human health. We even know now that these trees help climate-proof our urban centres by lowering summer temperatures up to several degrees, by attenuating storm-generated runoff and minimising flood risk, and by removing particulates and other pollutants from the city atmosphere. But such urban street trees are at risk and with likely cuts in UK local government services, the threats will soon increase dramatically. These trees, especially in an urban environment are stressed and require care and attention and their champions are often local government tree officers. This provision of service costs money and necessitates well-qualified professional support. However, observations in a number of conurbations over thirty years or more, and discussions with senior tree officers, suggests that local government and other responsible bodies often prefer to remove trees which they deem to be problematic. Generally this means those now mature forest trees that were planted by Victorian and Edwardian developers. This action is in order to minimise maintenance costs, to avoid damage to pavements, and to resolve other potential problems that officers, elected members, or the public associate with the older and bigger trees. Of course in urban areas there is the additional problem that these big trees were not planted in optimum conditions and the ambient environmental stresses sometimes but by no means always lead to premature decline. There are many examples of excellent practice in urban street tree management but one worries about the future in a DIY ‘Bigger Society’ scenario. Professional practice must be maintained even in the face of intransigent economic issues affecting both public and private sectors. The marked decline in arboricultural practitioners taking up options of professional training is a clear indication of the depth of the economic impacts of the downturn. However, it is argued that these trees bring huge benefits to a community and to a conurbation and that this includes enhanced economic prosperity. The problem with this is that the costs are borne by local government which is increasingly cash-strapped, but the benefits which accrue are to local business and to the community at large. The cost and the benefits are not placed with the same organization and so to transfer the financial incentive to maintain the resource there needs to be a movement of tax revenues to the service provider. This is not what central government will wish to hear.