Thornbury beauty spot ruined

By mwingereza | Monday, April 05, 2010, 00:53

Streamside Walk has been devastated by council maintenance. I first noticed it over a week ago. Near where the stream, which rises in Vilner, flows into the stream, which passes through Morton, the council has dredged the former stream and lopped three nearby pollarded willows.

The lopped historic trees
the mound and traffic cones
the strip islands

The dredged area is a floodplain, where the stream broadens out into three main channels, but the whole area can get submerged following a heavy downpour. Following the dredging the whole area has been largely devegetated, and the two strip islands between the water channels are just thin banks of mud. The dredged material has been dumped on the bank between the stream and the main footpath, and is a long mound of mud, stones and refuse. Alongside the mound is a line of traffic cones, at least one of which has been removed and is in the water downstream from the floodplain. To say that the area is now ugly would be an understatement. Furthermore, following the devegetation, there is now serious potential for erosion - of the strip islands, of the stream bank, and of the mound.

The pollarded willows are historic trees, and, as far as I know, pollarding (which was the process of cutting new shoots annually to make wicker products) had ceased. Instead of three interesting looking trees, there are now three ugly monoliths. The three historic pollarded willows upstream, near Gloucester Road, have been left alone.

The Streamside Walk linear park is an area of natural beauty, and the floodplain area was one of the most attractive stretches. It is now a scene of devastation.

The linear park is maintained jointly by Thornbury Town Council and South Gloucestershire Council. I doubt that the town council had the resources to do this. I have sent Freedom of Information requests about the dredging and the lopping to South Gloucestershire Council.

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Please find answers to the questions below.

On 13 May 2010, I received a response from South Gloucestershire Council about the pollarded willows:-

1. What was the reason for the lopping?
Pollarded trees need to be pollarded on a regular cycle to avoid the newly grown pollard poles from failing.
2. On which date(s) did that lopping take place?
The trees were pollarded in March. I do not know the exact date as that is down to our contractor.
3. What was done with the lopped wood?
The pollard poles were chipped up and removed from site.
4. Why were these trees lopped, when another three pollarded willows, closer to Gloucester Road (geographical co-ordinates roughly: lat=51.613153357856035 lon=-=-2.5212550163269043), have been left alone?
The trees along this stretch of streamside walk that need to be re-pollarded have will be next autumn.

I don't know how accurate this response is. Pollarding, the traditional management of willows for wicker products, involved an annual cut of the new shoots. I moved to Thornbury in 2005, and this is the first time that I have seen those willows cut back. I strongly suspect the idea of "newly grown pollard poles ... failing".

By mwingereza at 15:53 on 17/05/10
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You're right about the state of the area - it does not look attractive at all. Whether it was a beauty spot or not is almost irrelevant now just because this would be a sorry look for any part of our town. Let us know when you receive a reply from South Glos council - I'd like to know how they justify this.

By jmitchell27 at 14:21 on 05/04/10
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