Cambridge protesters hope to stop felling of 125-year old trees at St Matthew’s Piece

Campaigners staging a last minute bid to stop three mature plane trees being felled at a park in Cambridge are cautiously optimistic after Cambridge City Council removed the item from a planning committee agenda just hours ahead of the meeting.

The fate of the 125 year old trees at St Matthew’s Piece was set to be decided at a meeting on Wednesday (August 2) after council officers marked for approval a proposal to chop them down.

The request to remove the trees had been put forward by insurers of a house opposite them on Sturton Street who said the trees’ roots were damaging the building and causing subsidence.

Residents and campaigners from the Friends of St Matthew’s Piece fear that if the trees are felled at the insurers’ request then no tree in the city will be safe because it would set a precedent that even trees that are subject to a preservation order and in a conservation area, such as these, could be cut down.

On Tuesday afternoon, Cambridge City Council suddenly announced it was removing the agenda item so that officers could complete more work on their reports. A city council spokesperson said: “Two separate reports on trees related matters have been withdrawn from the agenda for Planning Committee tomorrow [2 August]. Further work on both reports will be carried out by officers. Residents and other parties with an interest in the reports are being informed.”

The council would not say why more work was needed on the reports or when the fate of the trees would now be discussed.

However, this unusual move from the council followed the submission a long list questions from Cllr Katie Thornburrow, about the evidence on which the case officer recommended the trees being felled.

Cllr Thornburrow said: “I understand that over the last few days it became clear that there were numerous questions and issues that still had to be answered. Applications can be deferred by the planning committee if there is outstanding information, and this might have happened tomorrow (at the meeting), so the decision was made now by the officers dealing with the applications to withdraw them from the agenda.

“I think that this is the right decision, and I think that residents will be pleased too. But we must make sure we do get the answers. This process has been stressful for many people. The appreciation of these magnificent tress has brought us together, and we will continue to work to protect them when threatened.”

An application made to prune the trees back to reduce any root impact on the nearby house was refused by councillors last year. Since then, the building’s insurers have claimed the trees have caused further damage to the building and must now be felled.

The council has put the value of the trees at £200,000 and estimates the cost of putting in a root barrier – to prevent further damage – to be around £80,000 and underpinning the building would be £120,000.

But an officer’s report stated the council was “not minded” to pay for underpinning or the full costs of a root barrier if councillors rejected the proposal This would put the authority at risk of being sued to cover the costs - as outlined in a response from the applicant’s representative.

A spokesperson for the Friends of St Matthew’s Piece, Dr Valerie Neal said: “We are desperately worried. We could lose three 125 year old trees. Removing these 28 metre tall trees will significantly impair the capacity of the Piece to provide a sanctuary for local residents and there is nothing else around here - no other open spaces. This is a community of small houses where many of the residents have no gardens, they live in flats, they have nowhere else to go.

“And this threat is not just local. It could prove to insurance companies all over the country, that if a house gets cracks in it, you don’t fix them. You just sue to have the trees removed, and there will be nothing to protect those trees from being felled. It takes 125 years to grow a tree like that. It doesn’t matter how many young trees you plant, these trees are irreplaceable.”

The Friends said they would only be satisfied if the officers’ further work results in “high quality, complete, clear and rigorous responses” to all of the questions raised by Cllr Thornburrow and all matters that have been “raised in a mighty roar of outrage from across the city – over the course of the frenzied week since the case officer published her shocking report that recommended the council’s planning committee should approve the felling of these three magnificent 125-year old, tree-preservation-ordered plane trees.”

They added the “essential outcome” must be that these trees should “never again be put at risk”.

The council officer’s report – which has now been withdrawn – explained that while the three trees are protected by a preservation order and are standing in a conservation area, this is not enough to prevent them being felled if they are causing subsidence.

A letter objecting to the proposal to chop down the trees was also sent in by the Labour leader of Cambridge City Council, Cllr Mike Davey, saying: “Felling of these mature trees would call councillors’ commitment to countering the climate crisis into question”

Cllr Thornburrow added: “I felt the previous application just to reduce the trees was unsupportable. So this is much worse. It would be a terrible thing for Petersfield and Cambridge to see the loss of these trees.

“I don’t feel that it’s been proven that there is damage as a result of these trees. So we’ve got a lot of questions for the case officer to try and understand why this recommendation has been made.”