Councillor fears cherry trees will not be replaced

A Battenhall councillor hopes he does not see history repeat itself following the felling of trees on Worcester’s Commandery Road.

Worcester city Green councillor Louis Stephen fears the three cherry trees cut down at the road’s junction with Sidbury will not be replaced.

Worcestershire County Council said the trees would be replaced but had to be removed ahead of the bird nesting season so no nesting birds would be affected as forthcoming Sidbury junction traffic improvement works were carried out.

Cllr Stephen’s concern was sparked by the failure to plant long-term replacement trees for four trees removed from Bath Road near its junction with Timberdine Avenue within recent years.

Replacement trees planted there died and the pavement has since been resurfaced, with no sign of where the trees previously stood.

“I had an assurance the trees would be replaced but they have not done a very good job of it at all,” said Cllr Stephen.

“The question remains what are they going to do at Commandery Road? Let’s hope they keep to their word this time.”

He added: “It’s a lot cheaper to cut the trees down than to maintain them but what sort of world do we want to live in?

“The trees are an amenity in a hard urban landscape of hard surfaces. The trees are a beautiful way of softening these places down.

“I think local residents are quite justified in being angry about them being cut down.”

The overall aim of the Sidbury junction improvement scheme, which will see the introduction of new signalling equipment to update the current 40-year-old installation, is to improve the efficiency of the signals.

The upgrade will allow the sites to “communicate” to each other when traffic flows vary and green light timings need to alter.

The wider scheme will also consider enhancements to street lighting, footways and crossing facilities. To introduce a signalised crossing at the bottom of Commandery Road, the central reservation needs to be widened. That, in turn, means the carriageway and then the footway will need to be moved over into the slabbed area where the trees were.

In a statement, the county council said: “In preparation for the works, three trees had to be removed from the bottom of Commandery Road ahead of the bird nesting season at the start of March to ensure that no nesting birds are affected by the removal of the trees.

“We will be planting replacement trees once the scheme is complete.”

Main works on the traffic scheme are due to start later this year.

The council added: “We always do what we can to prevent the removal of healthy street trees. When we absolutely have to, we always have a replanting strategy in place.

“Unfortunately, without the removal of these three trees, we would be unable to fully make the much-needed improvements to this area with the aim of improving crossing facilities and relieving congestion.”

Main works on the traffic scheme are due to start later this year.