In June 2019, during community consultation for our Forest Road development, we made it very clear in the printed material that both trees on the site would be replaced by a new semi-mature tulip tree. The Statement of Community Involvement recording matters raised by residents also shows that the trees were at no stage raised as a matter of concern. Subsequently it was made clear in planning documents that two trees were to be replaced by one tree. The council consulted widely on this in January 2020 and only two objections that mentioned trees were raised by residents.

Pocket Living was subsequently granted planning permission by Waltham Forest Council to remove both the cherry and horse chestnut tree on our Forest Road site in order to build affordable homes. On learning of concern in the community about these trees very recently, Pocket Living undertook a thorough review of the options for the site. We have been clear from the outset of this review that it was definitely not possible to retain the cherry tree, but we actively explored whether we could retain the horse chestnut.

Having worked with specialists throughout this review, we have now established that we could not retain the horse chestnut tree. Following advice from the Waltham Forest Planning and Highways teams, we concluded that the mitigating measures that we were looking to put in place to retain the horse chestnut tree would unfortunately cause too many detrimental impacts that would have got in the way of any kind of rational and balanced assessment, including substantial disruption to the pavement and cycle lanes which would have undermined highway safety.

We therefore proceeded with works to remove these trees from the site. In doing so, we obtained the necessary confirmation from our ecology team that there were no bird nests in the trees and that removal was appropriate.

We understand the strength of feeling in the community about these trees and that some people will be disappointed by their removal. No decision to remove trees from a site is taken lightly. We have full permission and a clear legal right to continue with this course of action in order to build affordable homes on the site. We will be replacing the two trees with a semi-mature tulip tree as planned and there will be no overall loss in the number of trees on site once the development is completed.