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Do you expect to see the concept expand throughout the country? Not in a coordinated way, but whoever wants to do it and has a supportive local authority to make it happen is very welcome. We could definitely use a second Treecycle for Hackney, as there are three officers here and we have a regular day where all three of us go out to do some young tree maintenance. You might see a fleet of Treecycles at some point! In the current climate of budget cuts, what do you think other tree officers can do to maintain their position? Service areas are currently in a position where they need to demonstrate that they can be profitable. If there is less money coming from central government then local authorities need to generate their own
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money, which can be passed on to service areas. But is it a business or a service? I’ve never been interested in working in the private sector, as I like the idea that the public sector is about people in an area doing a job for the people of that area. You can’t expect public services to be income generators. Tree officers still need to continually raise the profile of trees and show how important they are. It can become stressful, as you sometimes lose trees to developments etc., but you must stay positive, with the holistic goal of improving your local environment and planting more trees. It does feel like the tide may be slowly starting to turn and there is some money arriving for tree planting. The air pollution crisis in London is starkly highlighting the scale of the human impact on the environment, and provides an opportunity to bring the importance of urban trees to the public’s attention. We need greater collaboration and communication between local government departments to tackle these issues. It is all interlinked, and it is imperative to make a good network with other teams and create those relationships. It is perhaps about playing the game politically – but if you can make your benefits known it can be worthwhile. There are areas in Hackney, such as Homerton – an area with high levels of deprivation – that have very low street tree numbers, and these are some of the worst areas for air pollution. If you can plant trees there and demonstrate the benefits then hopefully you shouldn’t have to continually contest the value of trees – it will become self-evident.
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i like the idea that the public sector is about people in an area doing a job for the people of that area
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that and hopefully inspires people to take an interest in their local environment and community. I think, globally and nationally, people are starting to see the importance of being more environmentally sustainable. There needs to be a top-down and bottom-up approach. After the National Tree Officers Conference in November, tree officers from a couple of cities expressed an interest in the Treecycle concept; I sent them the information and they are going to look into it. Other London boroughs have said they would be interested, too. As a fairly new project, I imagine that it could develop in any number of ways in the future.
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22/01/2018 15:04