Trees on Embankment should not be felled

FRIDAY'S Herald (29th August) contained a report about a plan to fell the trees along the Embankment. Supposedly for "safety" reasons.

- Paul Whiteley

The emergency services and the Coroner has highlighted the trees as hazards but they are looking at this through the very narrow remit of road accidents and not through the wider benefits the trees give to us.

Cutting down the trees under the guise of road safety is misguided and is probably counter productive in the long run.

As someone who played, walked, run, cycled, fished and driven along the Embankment these last 70 years I know these trees and the elms that went before very well.

These are mature trees that have an environmental impact greater than appreciated. It's well understood that mature trees have a proportionally greater beneficial impact on the environment than younger smaller trees, in birds, in insect life, in Carbon sequestration and especially in pollution terms. Road traffic pollution is a leading cause of childhood asthma, trees help to alleviate particulates. Is the plan to remove the trees supposedly removing a safety risk merely causing a health risk somewhere else? Unmeasurable and out of sight out of mind?