GOT TO WED to SAVE HEADLANDS TREES with Tree Protection Orders - TPOs

Penarth Town Council Planning Committee will be discussing this application on Wednesday evening, following the Town Council meeting at West House 27th July at 7.00pm.. You are able to attend the meeting. However if you wish to speak, you need to contact the Town Council offices on 02920 700721 as soon as possible, so that you can be "booked in" to speak that evening. You are given 3 minutes. You can object online here   

Planning Application 2016/00773/TPO

There is an application to fell NINE Penarth Trees with TPOs. This is part of a scheme to fell 19 trees and reduce the crowns on many others which will radically change this historic parkland landscape up to the cliff-edge of Penarth Headland although it’s a habitat for owls and perhaps other protected species, the relevant species assessment has not been  done.

Seven Reasons why you should refuse this application

 1. Require the applicants to supply proper information, sufficient to identify the individual trees, and allow independent persons to inspect the TPO trees and enable judgement in context of their amenity value and listing critieria. The original TPO documents should be provided.

2. Consider making TPOs to cover all or most of the 40 trees that are intended for felling and lack protection at present. The scale of the felling of mature trees means probably significant impacts on both landscape and biodiversity.  Both should be assessed. 

3. Habitats Regs assessment is also needed for protected species, given that owls are known to forage and inhabit this area.  These would inform and support the decision on further TPOs.

4. The Council's biodiversity officer should be consulted, specifically over protecting the area under ancient and semi-mature woodland/parkland of Welsh government policy, in consultation with NRW specialists.

5. If any TPO trees are in the end to be felled, the Council must consider issuing treereplacement notices for each tree lost.  

  

6. Given that more time is needed for these assessments and decision, the Council should re-start the 6-week period once the proper required information is received for identifying the TPO trees.  That information should include the reasons given in each TPO notice. 

7. One could suspect that this tree clearance is in advance of any planning application for building on MG 2(25) Headlands School, St. Augustine’s Road to avoid the more difficult checks and balances as in  POLICY MD 3 - DESIGN OF NEW DEVELOPMENT like environmental impact assessments etc  

Adjacent to the Headlands site. This other planning application 2015/01449/FUL/ has recently been re-submitted by the developers and the application still proposes the felling of 38 mature (and for the most part, healthy) trees. This I believe is an important consideration in relation to the proposal to fell trees on the Headlands site because if both proposals went ahead - 57 mature trees would be felled within a very small area . I am arguing that this % loss of habitat would be significant and could have a devastating effect on wildlife and birds.