The following was forwarded to the Community Bulletin Board by Lisa Tang one of our local residents very involved with our local natural environment.

Islington Council through the Tree Service & Tree Preservation services are looking to develop a Tree Guardian scheme. This scheme is still in the consultation & development stage and we recently invited some of the interested parties along to give feed back on possible projects The Council have identified and we wanted to hear what projects the possible Tree Guardians would like to pursue. The projects discussed were as follows:

Notable Trees of Islington: this is a possible project that we would run in conjunction with the Woodland Trusts Ancient Tree Hunt. The aim of the project would be to record and photograph as many notable/veteran trees within Islington. We have been given some specifications from the Woodland Trust and have produced a list of over 500 council managed trees that could be investigated further. There are a number of private owned trees that currently have Tree Preservation Orders TPOs that we would like to be recorded along with this info. However, there are also privately owned trees that we may not be aware of. We would like the Tree Guardians to record as many of these trees as possible from the data we have as well as what we don’t have.

Dog Damage: Islington as with many other London Boroughs have seen a dramatic increase of damage to trees as a result of dog damage. We would like help in monitoring where and how regularly this damage is occurring within your local area. We have also installed protective measures to help reduce further damage, and again we would like to know how successful these methods have been.

Education & Tree Guardian Awareness: as this scheme is still in its infancy, we believe that it is necessary to develop awareness of that the group is doing and to encourage its membership to grow. One option would be for there to be an education programme to be established to engage local schools and any other educational groups within Islington; we would also like to encourage other promotional activities that could increase the awareness and membership of the scheme. This could include posters in housing estate, libraries, etc to new paper and radio ads.

Young Tree Maintenance: the first 3-5 years of a newly planted tree are the hardest, we would like help in monitoring the condition of the trees and for the Tree Guardians to help with reporting damage to the trees, guards and stakes and if possible watering and weeding their local trees

The ideas put forward during the meeting were as follows:

Tree Guardians to attached ribbons to trees with contact details for the Tree Service and advertise the Tree Guardian Scheme.

The Tree Guardians to promote fruit tree planting within the borough and the use of this fruit.

Install signs

*           Tree shaped signs advertising the benefits of trees
*           Tree tags with the name, species and other interesting details

Contact number for reporting damage; we will try and make the text number more available.

And questions were raised about Management.

How are we going to manage the work loads to the tree guardians?

Possibly with groups working within specific wards within the borough or by identify the relevant trees that would be of interest within a regularly used walking route.

Training was also raised; we would also provide a level of training depending on the activities that the Tree Guardians were interested in.

And finally the provision of child care was also raised; we will consider this issue seriously by looking at the possibilities, and whether or not the provision would be of benefit to suitable proportion of Tree Guardians.

The next step is for us to get suitable approval to fund some of these activities. If you have any further views or comments on what has been previously discussed, can you please return your comment to me before the 28th of May.

It was also raised that some of the Tree Guardians would prefer the text number for future messages. It is as follows: 80800; start your message with Greenspace, Trees and then type your message.

I will contact you shortly with details on the launch of the Tree Guardian Scheme.

Kindest regards

Grayham Tindal
Urban Forester
Greenspace, Public Realm
Environment & Regeneration Division

222 Upper Street
London
N1 1XR
Tel: 020 7527 2000

Alternatively, contact James Chambers – 020 7527 2000

Please feel free to complete the Tree Service customer satisfaction survey by clicking on the below link.

http://snaponline.snapsurveys.com/surveylogin.asp?k=125960390459

Islington Tree Service – Overall Winners of the London Tree and Woodland Award 'Excellence in Tree and Woodland work by a public body'.

Islington – Winners of the 'Gold' and 'Overall Best Entry' awards in London in Bloom 2009 and Silver-gilt in Britain in Bloom 2009. For a full list of awards received visit: http://www.islington.gov.uk/environment/outdoor/parks/in_bloom