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Ashley Down Oak saved in council U-turn
Just four months after Bristol City Council said that the felling of a historic oak tree was “unavoidable”, Marvin Rees stood next to the Ashley Down Oak saying that it will now be saved.
It is a victory for the activists who have been occupying the tree since it was earmarked to be chopped down due to its roots risking the structural stability of a nearby house.
The newly re-elected mayor announced the dramatic U-turn in a video posted on Facebook, saying that saving the tree was “a really good piece of news”.
is needed now More than ever
Rees said that experts have now found a way to protect the house that was subsiding without felling the tree.
“We are going to be able to save the tree and we are going to be able to save the home,” Rees said.
He paid tribute to his former cabinet member, Afzal Shah, and 19-year-old environmentalist Mya-Rose Craig – who supported Rees’ election campaign – for her “communications on this matter”.
https://www.facebook.com/MarvinJRees/posts/1911627185652645
But another teenager, 18-year-old Lily Fitzgibbon, the newly elected Green councillor for Bishopston & Ashley Down ward, was sceptical of how the tree came to be saved.
Fitzgibbon tweeted: “While I am incredibly relieved to hear that the Ashley Down Oak will be saved, I’m concerned that residents and campaigners were completely left out of the process.
“Why were our emails to @CllrAfzalShah ignored when over 2000 concerned people signed our petition?
“Additionally, this campaign never should have been necessary. These decisions shouldn’t be happening as an afterthought and council policies need to be updated to reflect the declaration of ecological emergency.”
The holm oak tree on Ashley Down Road has stood for more than 100 years – photo: Martin Booth
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read more: ‘Bristol City Council needs to retain trees rather than fell them’
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