I was very pleased to read that Southwark Council has emerged as one of the top performing boroughs for preserving and planting street trees according to a new GLA report. Southwark outperformed neighbouring boroughs Lewisham, Lambeth and Bromley.

Trees contribute much to the local environment, offsetting the concrete mass of the city sprawl and framing offices houses and shops. They offer cooling relief in the summer and provide a first line of defence against climate change.

Southwark has an interesting tree history.  We have some excelllent large Plane trees and the Bermondsey Borough Council between the wars is still remembered for the tree planting programme enacted by its ‘Beautification Committee’. We benefit from the legacy of cherry trees they planted today.

But the record had become tarnished in recent years and in  the last few years of the old Labour administration there was no new tree planting taking place at all.

When the Lib Dems won the council elections in 2002 I was pleased as Environment portolio holder to play a part in turning that around. Southwark’s positive attitude towards preserving our street trees has been recognised in the figures in this report.

 In Southwark we have 15436 street trees. In last five years we have planted 1775 trees and removed 251, mainly due to storm damage, disease or subsidence. This net gain of 1524 (9.87%) compares with Lambeth’s net gain of 877 (9.36%), Bromley’s net gain of 900 (2.37%) and Lewisham’s net gain of just 31 trees (0.26%).

Overall, Southwark ranked fifth of all 32
London boroughs in terms of percentage increase in street tree numbers.