Trees for Havering-the battle to plant trees across Havering continues.

In January 2020, when I first met with the council to discuss launching the Trees for Havering campaign, I was met with enthusiasm, and council officers were happy to support the campaign.  Throughout 2020, I continued to meet with parks officers, the parks development manager, and a senior arborist to identify sites for tree planting.  By May 2021, several planting locations had been identified across Havering and the parks officers told us which type of trees to obtain for each location. 

Now that we had sites identified and knew the types of trees and the amounts needed, we set about ordering thousands of trees.  Although it had been an uphill struggle dealing with the council to make it to this point, with them missing many meetings and taking weeks to reply, everything was on track and our first event took place at Havering Country Park, where over 600 trees were planted.  It was now about scheduling further dates at the other locations, which the parks officers had agreed to do for some time by now, yet had failed to provide any more dates.  

Engagement from the council then dropped and suddenly it felt like we were being ignored.  The tree planting season is between November and the end of March and we now had thousands of trees that needed planting and no more dates in the diary for council locations. After expressing our disappointment with the lack of commitment, officers told us they would raise a proposal for planting at the other locations but it would need to be signed off by council leaders.  By this point, we had been working with the council for 2 years to get Trees for Havering off the ground and under their direction had ordered thousands of trees which could now all die if not planted soon.  They were fully aware of our campaign, they had 2 years to plan for it, yet had failed to do so.  

Although I was disappointed after being let down again, I was told to expect some dates for early March.  It was a couple of weeks later that I received an email from the parks officers, explaining that because the Council Leader (Cllr. Damian White) plans to plant 4000 Covid Memorial trees so they were no longer in a position to support the campaign.  Two year’s worth of work, only to be let down by the council at the last minute, and now we have thousands of trees which will die if not planted.  It would be interesting to know how much Damian’s Memorial trees are costing Havering and how they are being funded.

Our trees which were kindly supplied by The Woodland Trust and The Conservation Volunteers, are traceable, UK grown and disease free, and can literally be planted anywhere.  Havering has over 100 parks and open spaces where these trees could be planted, yet it seems, because the council leader wants to plant some trees, no one else can.  Trees for Havering is literally no cost to Havering council as we provide the trees, guards, stakes and people power to plant them.  We even have a plan to revisit the sites for maintenance and to remove the guards. 

The Trees for Havering campaign was launched to improve air quality, bring the community together, and create opportunities for the residents to invest in the future of Havering by planting new trees.  The council have said they hope to support Trees for Havering next season, however, we were promised the support of the council this season.  It is disappointing to say the least.

Luckily, there are some landowners in the borough that see the value of the campaign and have offered us locations to plant some trees, however, due to the council messing us about, we now have less than a month of the season left to plant them.

Our next scheduled events are below for those who wish to join our campaign and plant a tree for Havering.

12th March – Rainham Riverside BID (Rainham) – www.facebook.com/events/644099276876547/

13th March – Stubbers Adventure Centre (Upminster) – www.facebook.com/events/378329704025997/

More information on Trees for Havering can for found here: https://thehaveringdaily.co.uk/trees/