The horrific future for our trees and hedgerows

Part of the ONF Petition to Surrey County Council (SCC) was to raise concern about the Veteran Trees and hedgerows which will be lost.  The SCC Response to the petition was: “Throughout the design process, a key objective has been to minimise impact on the trees and the current design has similarly sought to achieve this.” 

FALSE!  How can this possibly be the case when the scheme retains only 8 minor trees inside its planning boundary, removes all of our Tree Protection Order trees and all the hedgerows, leaving only three Veteran trees on Murray Road - these being at severe risk of loss due to their roots being under the new highway. 

When we plot the areas affected into an image, the story is quite horrific! 

We await a suitably revised and authoritative, SCC approved ARCADIS design which avoids loss and risk to our precious Veteran and Mature trees and Important hedgerows. 

It is impossible to replace 100+ year old trees and hedgerows just with new planting and not have a massive negative effect upon the landscape, environment, biodiversity and aesthetics.