More trees are to be felled this week after succumbing to elm disease – this time in East Brighton Park.
The 15 young and five mature trees near the East Brighton Cafe will be felled this week by Brighton and Hove City Council to prevent disease spreading further.
The council will also also dig a trench to sever the roots and travelling through the root system to other trees nearby.
Councillor Alan Robins, cabinet member responsible for trees, said: “It’s a real shame that we’re having to remove these trees, but we have no other choice in this instance.
“We face a constant battle to protect the city’s historic elm collection, which means that on occasion we have to fell trees, but we only do this as a last resort.
“The work we’re doing to inoculate hundreds of trees and to spot the disease early should mean felling fewer trees – and we’re asking everyone to help us by not bringing elm logs into the city.”
Work is due to begin this week and will take 3-5 days to complete. Access to the car park and café won’t be affected.
Over the past two weeks, the council has inoculated around 1,400 elm trees in parks and open spaces, to protect them against the disease.
The arboriculture team carries out regular inspections, sometimes using drones, to look for signs of elm disease.
If confirmed, this can sometimes mean felling trees to prevent further spread. The council says this is only ever done as a last resort.
It’s asking residents to help us in the fight against elm disease by not buying or bringing in logs for winter fuel/firewood if the supplier cannot guarantee that the wood isn’t elm.
Will they replace the felled trees with disease resident elms or a different tree ? Wildlife will need new ones as well as our lungs .
All for trees providing homes for wildlife, but the air benefits are minimal. A mature, growing, tree absorbs about 21kg of CO2 per year so these 20 trees could absorb 420kg. The average resident generates about 6000kg of CO2 per year so this represents 7% of 1 person.