A conservation group has expressed concern about Network Rail's planned tree removals alongside the railway in Palmers Green, which is due to begin on Monday 30th September (this this earlier report).
Colin Younger, Chair of the Lakes Estate Conservation Area Study Group, has written to Network Rail to express the Group's worries that the "attention" to "more sycamore trees" which the rail company say is needed might lead to wholesale removal of tree cover, as has happened along other sections of the line, resulting in a "treeless desert".
The sycamores are on the western side of the line north of Palmers Green Station. The Study Group considers that, even if individual trees are not of high value, the tree cover and its understory along this side of the railway are a valuable asset both to properties on the edge of the Conservation Area and as a wildlife corridor. Mr Younger points to previous "fairly drastic tree reduction and loss of the understory” in the area immediately to the north of Palmers Green station on the other side of the track.
The Study Group are also concerned that Network Rail might at some future stage carry out work in the station itself and the station car park at little or no notice. Both of these are included in the Conservation Area. A large Scots Pine in the car park has died (cause unknown), and there may be a risk to the remaining group caused by work such as that carried out on the cycle parking and paving, as this type of tree tends to depend on fairly shallow root systems. The tree was one of a group which make a positive contribution to the Conservation Area, and Mr Younger is anxious that Network Rail should pay care and attention to the remaining trees and preferably plant a replacement.
