Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Haringey one of few Laggard London Boroughs Failing to Provide Street Tree Data
Haringey Council have left a black hole in London's street tree data
On his blog about London Street Trees, Paul Wood recently pointed up a map published by the GLA that shows all of London's street trees - well most of them. As Paul explains:
There are some black holes (in the data) – for instance, Hackney and Haringey are two of seven boroughs that have yet to provide their data, but 25 of the 32 boroughs, plus the City of London and TfL have done and even with gaps, the potential of this map is becoming clear. Knowing what is planted on our streets is not only of interest to those who manage the tree inventory, this information can start to inform planning decisions, provide environmental insights and help shape policy to improve air quality. If there’s a correlation between levels of pollution and mature Plane Trees for instance, then this map could be a tool in that investigation right across the city. For me though, the most exciting possibility is the potential for public engagement.
Given the passions evidenced by the recent threat to a tree in Cavendish Road, it's clear that there is a strong local desire for openness about our street trees. So it seems a pity that Haringey have so far failed to provide the data.
Read more on Paul's blog here.
Learn about his soon to be published book on London's street trees here.
Tags for Forum Posts: trees
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Chris Setz on
-
In spite of direct and pointed efforts by me and I guess others, the Council refuses point blank to open the data we pay them to collect and maintain - they keep everything secret by default. Sutton is a London borough that publishes around five times more open data that Haringey - what has ours to hide?
There are many good examples of how useful and relevant access to data is, but I think it is more than that - it's a way we can be more informed in our participation across the board, how we can work together with our gatekeeper. Information wants to be free. The Council know that information is power but they don't want it spread about. They must see the enormous danger if we all knew more about our 100% publicly-owned trees! The tech to consult us about the choices of what tree to plant where is free, help us work with the Council's expert aboriculturalists is a huge opportunity to get local people involved in their own locality - the best way to be and a benefit we can enjoy in every street and park.
The Chief Exec says that open source software is desirable because it'll save loads of money as it's free of licence charges, but why has he not rolled it out, saving us millions? Why is the Council's IT infrastructure kept secret? Why can't we know how many millions we're paying in software licences? Why are the Council paying expensive licences for proprietary tree database software, when other councils are using open source software, which is free of charge? Is the cost of the expertise in proprietary software they've locked themselves into the reason that our borough is not contributing to a London-wide effort mentioned above? Most Councils contribute automatically (i.e. without cost) Why can't the GLA ( our council has a statutory duty to pass them tree data) bang heads together and get everyone on the same page?
Once the software is open source, the data will follow. the Council should convert all their systems to open source, partly because open source software stores data in a non-proprietary way, leading directly to easy sharing, not to mention much, much better protection against malware.
Why can't we even see a list of the databases they maintain on our behalf? Which local Cllr will take up this issue on our behalf?
One of the London Tree Week (27thMay-4thJune) events , there's a free session in Westminster on Friday 2nd June 2:30-4pm (partly featuring work done by the Friends of Alexandra Park) entitled:
Trees and Technology
Free but must book: https://woodlandtrusttickets.cloudvenue.co.uk/londontreeweektreesan...
A panel of tree and technology experts will, through a series of case studies, look at how recent developments in technology can be used for public engagement, help us understand our urban trees better, help in the fight against pests and diseases, tree mapping and more. Chaired by: Stuart Dainton, Head of Innovation at the Woodland Trust
Speakers:
● Katrina Ramsey and Anna Gibson, Greater London Authority: An overview of the Mayor’s online London Street Tree Map
● Steve Pocock, technologist; and Paul Wood, author of ‘London’s Street Trees’: TreeTalk, using technology to explore and explain London street trees ‘in the field’
● Conor Nugent, Curio.xyz: Using satellite imagery to measure canopy cover and to drive a community effort to map the trees in Malmö, Sweden and Devon.
● Simon Edwards: A user’s guide to creating digital tree trails with the TiCL app.
● Richard Lanyon-Hogg: The Internet of Trees, applying IoT technology to engage people with trees.
Followed by a review of themes, and questions from the audience.
---------------------
Worth going if interested - please try and document what happens if you go.
-
Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
-
Paul appears to focus mainly on street trees.
It seems to me from regular use of Google Maps/Street view that proportion of street trees to others may show the latter as of greater significance.
As well as the obvious places like parks and small green spaces, from a quick aerial view, it looks as though railway lines and back gardens hold many more trees. And trees which are not removed and replanted as many street trees are, to avoid problems with roots or overshadowing windows.
So if we are worried about the environmental impact of loss - especially of mature trees, then aren't infill, building garages, sheds with beds etc likely to pose a far greater threat? Plus of course paving over front and rear gardens can increase flood risk.
-
-
The Council maintain all the trees in public green spaces, council-owned housing estates, Homes for Haringey property etc. This includes public parks, but sadly the Council has no statutory duty towards parks, so we could lose them to the creeping privatisation most clearly seen in the commercial surface that Finsbury Park has become.
Many lobbyists want to raise the profile of trees, notably the wonderful people associated with Tottenham Trees.
Obama appointed a CIO for America and that spurred the open-source 'civic tech' efforts, so many US cities are better at this than us. A lot of what Haringey do could be done using the open source software the US have developed for their cities. We all face pretty much the same needs and opportunities. New York leads the tree-mapping field with 682k trees mapped. San Francisco's Street Tree Census values their 124k trees at $2.3bn. We can use the American Forestry Commission's I-Tree open source software tools once we've got datasets we can rely on. The UK Forestry Commission's London-wide survey mentioned above used their I-Tree Eco tool.
One enterprising Uni dept has recently managed something obvious to me - identifying trees in a google street-view 'virtual driveby' that would be great for worldwide use but the real challenge is to orchestrate a global open source response as trees are very much global citizens and we all face the same issues wherever they are whereas Google are only interested in money.
There's a pressing case for satellite use. LiDAR data so obtained is advancing in resolution even though the public domain stuff is not that useful yet because it is too valuable - most relevant datasets are strictly licensed by commercial operators such as Blue Sky. The Universities and the GLA have paid them but the terms of the licence make them non-sharable. I was told that the issue is the copyright of derived works, but the opportunity to monitor is too good to miss IMHO - I don't buy the idea that if you provide a general dataset and I derive a specific work from it, I must pay you even if there is none of your data actually recognisable in my work.
We could have daily LiDAR 'flyover' surveys if there was the will. One issue the Forestry Commission battles with is the progress of disease - various threats such as Oak Processionary Moth are recorded approaching us and we need to know how far and how fast they travel if we are to take preventative action. It's not only trees they harm:
Researchers have for years been working on identifying trees from above by their colour and the recordable pattern of photosynthesis-led changes that can be isolated over time and hence identified. It's surely got to be easy to identify street trees from LiDAR because they almost all stand in a landscape where they're the only things of that colour for metres around.
I think we're at the point where we could have regular London-wide automatic tree survey data made freely available to all via the London DataStore. That would allow a more holistic view of the treescape than is practical today, responding to questions posed by, for example, the need for London-wide rather than just Borough-wide biodiversity.
The question that concerns me is, can we ourselves speed things along or will the powers that be get around to it in their own sweet time whatever we do?
-
Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
-
Holding data on the type and location of council mainland trees seems a no-brainer. If a local authority is to manage trees it needs this data to do it! Sharing the data as widely as possible is surely in everyone's interest.
I wonder if Haringey have mapped trees with protection orders on private land?
Alan is right about the contribution made by land that isn't council owned or managed. When I look out of my back window the number and variety of trees in neighbouring gardens is pretty impressive. For instance in the five gardens that abut mine there are two silver birches, a huge fig, apples, pears, a damson and a sycamore.
-
-
With great respect Michael, your very question implies that the Council are likely to be incompetent - you wouldn't be surprised if they had no data. Is it your opinion that the Council are generally useless so you assume they'll be so in every area?
Haringey's Tree Service maintain a database of every tree they are responsible for - what else would any reasonable person expect them to do? They use some sophisticated commercial software (Mapinfo) to manage the data, adjusted after every tree visit/incident. The thirst for data from people like me is hard to justify I guess. I'd like to know the height, girth and rate of growth for instance, so how many measurements ought they to take, given that trees grow at different rates for many reasons - in the open they grow more quickly. I'd like to know in real time where the shadows that trees cast fall...
They maintain a Tree Preservation Order (TPO) list for those trees not in conservation areas. Every tree in a conservation area is automatically TPO'd. They can extract a list of trees per geographical area.
Like any sophisticated database, there are a huge amount of time-consuming ways in which accuracy and coverage can be improved, but the reality is that any single tree might not be visited for years, so some parts of the database look relatively out of date - they 'round robin' street trees in the borough according to their published maintenance schedule over a period of years - it's most cost effective. They sometimes are able to commission surveys to add to the accuracy but it's hard to obtain funding for more regular measurements when budget cuts to trees are almost impossible for residents to pinpoint so Cllrs can axe silently.
I notice that there doesn't seem to be agreement within the industry as to how to account for the many changes Tree Surgeons make to the shape of trees as contractors to the council, so those frequent, widespread interventions tend not to be as fully recorded as I'd like.
The planning department constantly requires the tree service to give expert opinions on a number of aspects of planning permission, including whether laws protecting trees have been broken, whether the new trees demanded of developers are adequate etc. These opinions have quasi-judicial status so they better be exact. Often they are contentious and occasionally part of prosecutions. There's also a lot pf planning and paperwork needed to maintain and refresh, say, the tress in our parks, dealing with problems such as people lurking in bushes and attack dogs being trained to strip bark. This tedious, painstaking, bureaucratic work must be a burden to the Aboriculturalists I've met as all they really want to do as far as I can see is be outside.
You can ask the Tree Service for any data they've got and they'll generally provide it (although they're under no obligation to). A few of us have held numerous tree walks around the Wards and they've promptly provided lists in advance of everything we've asked for as soon as we have.
My involvement over many years (as someone not shy of severely criticising the Council on every occasion) has led me to respect the people who staff our Tree Service - they are unsung heroes. Our trees in Haringey are a massive everyday bounty - each one of us passes hundreds every day and it's down to them consistently going the extra mile over a long period that we're so well provided for.
-
-
"Every tree in a conservation area is automatically TPO'd."
Not quite:
http://www.haringey.gov.uk/environment-and-waste/nature-and-conserv...
-
-
Thanks Alan I should have been more exact and thus stand corrected. As you write, they're not all protected and as Micheal points out, the default is often to grant permission for removal.
What Tree Service staff probably meant when they told me conservation area trees were protected is that they extend the same level of protection to trees in the conservation areas as for those TPO'd but of course they can't as TPO's have legal status and their non-TPO concerns don't have any legal force.
-
-
Goodness Chris, you seem to have made a lot of assumptions about me from a very short post. I used to work in planning for a London authority and the TPO and TCA (trees in conservation areas) processes were handled there. One of the jobs I did was to make sure that applications to carry out work to trees in conservation areas were decided within timescales otherwise the default position is to grant permission.
-
-
I'm sorry Michael, I apologise, it's just the implication I took from your post. I read so many people on this site who hate on the Council at every opportunity when they have no grounds to do so. Your post seemed to me to be saying that, as it was a no-brainer and the Council had not done it, they had no brains! I should get out more :)
Once again, apologies
-
-
Accepted
-
-
Thanks!
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
