Making bread from wood
By mwingereza | Monday, May 17, 2010, 17:33
Many of Thornbury’s trees have been lopped or felled in the past twelve months. The justification given for these various actions seems tenuous. What is the real reason for so many of Thornbury’s beautiful trees having been mutilated or removed? Could it be financial?
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The processing factory
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One of four tree replaced in Elizabeth Close by two young conifers
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Lopped ash tree in Streamside Walk
Look around the town – in the green open spaces and the streamside linear parks - and see how many stumps and lopped trees there are. Notice the still existing trees, leaning at a dangerous angle, which are left in situ, and think of all the trees that have gone, for no apparent reason.
What happens to the felled and lopped wood? It goes to the community composting site by the Leisure Centre. This site is managed by volunteers and supported by South Gloucestershire Council [1]. Our MP has come out in support of community composting [2]. The Thornbury site looks like a processing factory, with piles of wood waiting to be dealt with. At that place, wood is either shredded for mulch, or cut for firewood.
The firewood or mulch is then sold to the public. There is good money in all that, at £1.50 per bag [3]. The site is making so much money that it can report giving generous donations to other community organisations. One such organisation is Thornbury in Bloom [4].
Hey! Wait a minute …. that means that Thornbury in Bloom is funded by the lopping and felling of trees! That can’t be right surely?
If you think that, then why did Sue Aitken, Chairman of Thornbury in Bloom, place a letter in the Thornbury Gazette, on 4 March 2010, justifying the removal of two silver birches from the High Street (a South Gloucestershire Council action) and the instatement of one tree in their stead? Why did she boast of fourteen new trees (9 South Gloucestershire Council + 5 Thornbury in Bloom) being planted in Thornbury during the 2009/10 winter planting season (including the new High Street tree), without explaining that most of those new trees were replacing felled trees? Why did she seem so reluctant to give me the precise locations of the fourteen new trees (as previously reported) [5]?
There may be a good explanation for all this – perhaps saaitken can provide us with it. Over to you, Chairman Sue …
1. http://www.southglos.gov.uk/NR/exeres/4b2d6121-2540-4dcf-ab8c-fd2276b734f2
2. http://www.stevewebb.org.uk/MPs%20report%20March10.pdf
3. http://www.mythornbury.co.uk/community_composting
4.
http://www.thornburytowncouncil.gov.uk/pdf/Environment/Environment%20Report%2024%20Nov%202009.pdf
http://www.thornburyinbloom.co.uk/
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