Frome Town Council has asked for permission to fell 13 trees in Victoria Park. The felling is part of an ongoing management plan in the town’s parks and green spaces by the town council.
An independent survey on all the trees in Frome’s public spaces is being undertaken by an independent trees expert on behalf of the council.
Tags have been appearing and are being used to uniquely identify all of the trees in public spaces.
The town council has already calculated there are more than 330 in Victoria Park alone.
The tags also correspond to a set of detailed condition surveys being undertaken by an independent arborist and these surveys will help inform the management of the town’s trees over the upcoming years.
Based on the observations and recommendations made in these surveys a schedule on what works need to be carried out, such as the mulching that is already under way in Victoria Park and removing the ivy and the basal epicormic shoots from limes in Welshmill.
Most of the works will be routine maintenance and good practice completed by the council’s rangers. However, some works will be more specialist such as climbing works on taller, larger trees.
As part of this work there is currently an application by the town council to Mendip to fell 13 trees in Victoria Park, which is a conservation area.
This includes a split Lawson cypress by the eastern entrance to the park and a decaying multi-stemmed Lawson cypress with a branch overhanging Weymouth Road.
According to the council both of these have been recommended for felling because of concerns about where and how they have split and because of their closeness to busy footpaths, and in the case of the multi-stemmed cypress, its proximity to Weymouth Road.
Variously the others have been recommended for felling because of concerns about their health; their general poor quality and/or their location – a number of these are being suppressed by other competing species, for example.
A spokesman for the council said: “Over time we’ll be planting new, replacement and succession trees across the town’s parks and green spaces, including planting in Victoria Park and on Mary Baily this winter/spring to balance any trees that come out.”
