Residents call on council to move more quickly to replace trees it cuts down on their streets

Jonathan Healy says he was shocked when he woke up on 16 January to find workers cutting down two trees on his street in Phibsborough.

He ran outside to ask them what they were doing, he says. A council staff member said they needed to cut down the trees because they were damaged, he says, but they assured him they would replace them.

Healy was disappointed when he later found out from local councillors that the council would plant the new trees in three to five years, after the roots of the old trees had rotted, he says.

That wasn’t the impression he got on the day, he said.

Around three years ago, workers for the council had cut down another tree, so there are three stumps close together on Geraldine Street – two on one side and one opposite – which leaves a gap in the birch trees that line the street.

“I just can’t believe it takes five years,” says Healy, and he wants the council to take action sooner. “Five years is a long time to be looking at a stump.”

In the south inner-city, two years ago, a group of residents got together to form Trees for Tenters after the council cut down 15 trees in their area, including five on one street.

Conor Humphries, one of Trees for Tenters says, the group accepts that the council needs to cut down some trees, but, like Healy, they want guarantees that the council will systematically replace them.

The council had a tree strategy for 2016 to 2020, which aims to replace felled trees but also warned that this could take three to five years – and that replacements might not be planted in the exact same spots.

The strategy committed to engaging with local communities and good communication with all relevant stakeholders. However, residents in Phibsborough and the Tenters say they received no information in advance about council plans to fell trees on their streets.

Dublin City Council hasn’t responded to queries sent Friday about its communication with residents in advance of felling trees on their streets.

At their September monthly meeting, councillors supported a motion from Fianna Fáil’s Tom Brabazon – then a councillor, now a TD – for a “total review of the trees policy”.

Assistant Chief Executive Frank D’Arcy said he had “no issue” with reviewing the current tree strategy (that was in the works anyway). The councillors referred it to committee, to hash out the details.

Fine Gael Councillor Declan Flanagan is chair of the council’s Climate Action and Urban Resilience Strategic Policy Committee. It does not appear to have met since May.

Why the cull?

The council’s tree strategy for 2016 to 2020 says that “the Parks Service actively seeks to preserve the city’s stock of trees by only allowing removal in exceptional circumstances”.

It had to cut down the trees on Geraldine Street because they were damaged, says an email from a council official to a resident.

One of the trees was broken, with a cracked “main stem” caused by wind and the other had been left very unbalanced by ESB pruning, meaning that it was also likely to break.

The tree that had been cut in an unbalanced way by the ESB was located directly under a power line. “The ESB  has a statutory obligation to remove any branches or stem within 1 m of power lines,” the council official wrote.

The council will plant a different type of tree next time, one that won’t grow tall enough to interfere with that powerline, he said.

Residents on Geraldine Street wondered why that tree could not have been pruned on the other side to rebalance it, rather than cut down.

Green Party Councillor Michael Pidgeon says he is hugely in favour of trees on city streets.

“The objective should be to grow the number of trees,” he says. “It’s good for water, it’s good for shade, it’s good for air quality and just looks nicer – it’s a good thing to do.”

Pidgeon says that in his experience, having looked into various cases, the council only cuts down trees when it’s necessary. Usually because the tree was unhealthy or was causing damage, he says.

Humphries, of Trees for Tenters, says the group accepts there are legitimate reasons why the council fells trees – but he wants it to guarantee to replace them. “We got the impression that they weren’t really keen on replacing them,” he says.

If the council doesn’t systematically replant the trees it fells, then as time goes on there will be fewer and fewer street trees, he says. “At a minimum the street trees that are there should be maintained or else replaced.”

Dublin City Council didn’t respond in time for publication to a query as to whether it systematically replants trees to replace those it has felled, and if it can show this.

But figures in the city’s tree strategy show that of the more than 1,800 standard trees the council planted each year at the time, almost half were planted along the roadside, a third in public parks, and a fifth in smaller neighbourhood open spaces.

About 60 percent of those trees were replacement plantings, the strategy says.

Restoring tree-lined streets

The council’s tree policy says it takes time to replace a tree that has been cut down.

“Because the stump has to be placed on a stump removal list and sufficient time needs to elapse to allow breakdown of residual underground root material, the process from removal to replanting may take up to 3-5 years,” it says.

But Healy says the residents on Geraldine Street in Phibsboro want the council to act fast. “I just don’t think it’s acceptable, given where we are with the climate and biodiversity crisis.”

If that means breaking up the pavement and pulling out the roots of the old trees then the council should do that, he says. “Is it really such a big deal to just re-lay cement on the footpath?”

Alternatively, the council should look for other locations on the same street, he says. “There is lots of footpath space, where they could do it.”

Humphries says residents in the Tenters want the council to install temporary planters with trees in them, where the trees are missing, on their streets, until the replacements are growing.

Pidgeon says it can be difficult to find new spots to plant trees in the inner-city because of the dense underground services like water pipes and electricity cables that the council has to consider, he says.

A council presentation from 2021 shows the issues the council faces, as tree roots are much larger than the tree and in urban environments the roots sometimes have nowhere to go.

And it’s harder for trees to survive in an urban environment compared to the countryside or a park, he says. “It’s very, very difficult to plant viable trees in an urban environment, but we have to keep trying.”

The trees in planters often don’t survive, he says.

The other option is to provide more pocket forests in neighbourhoods, he says, which would increase the overall number of trees in the city but perhaps not give residents exactly what they want – which is often a tree-lined street.

Should the council tell people in advance?

Healy says residents on his street might have accepted the tree-felling more if the council had explained to them in advance why it was necessary, and what the plan was for replacing the trees.

“At least it wouldn’t be as much of a shock,” he says.

The council’s tree strategy for 2016 to 2020, which has yet to be replaced, says that “Where practicable the Council will encourage and facilitate the involvement of local communities, schools and other stakeholders in tree planting, management and educational activities.”

It also says that, “The Council will endeavour to contact local resident groups prior to additional major tree works or tree removal but this is not always possible.”

But Humphries says he understands why the council doesn’t warn the neighbours before felling trees on their street. “People would chain themselves to the tree.”

However, if the council had a plan to replace every tree it cuts down, that would help to allay fears in the community, says Humphries. “We are very lucky to live on a street that has trees, some streets have none.”