Minutes for Herefordshire Tree Warden Networklaunch Event

Minutes for Herefordshire Tree Warden NetworkLaunch Event

7th Nov. 2015 10:30am – 1pm @ Wellington Community Hall HR4 8RZ.

1. Attendees:Green = Tree Warden

James Bisset, Countryside and Parks, HC

Brenda and Rob Bowen, Sarnefield,

Chris Bucknell, Wellington Parish Clerk,

Mo Burns, (minute taker) Hereford

Jon Cook, Kington,

Richie Cotterill, Kington,HTWN

Jane Denny, Hereford Greyfriars Ward

Deanne Evans, Leominster

Heather Evans, Walford

Philip Ferguson, Cusop

Nicky Geeson, Breinton

David Griffith, Lyonshall

Martin Gilleland, Belmont Rural

Lewis Goldwater, Kington

Jenny Guille, Welllington Parish Clerk

Paul Hodges, Bartestree

Lin Hoppe, Bartestree with Lugwardine

Alan Jones, Weobley

Mike Ledlie, Hereford Tupsley

William Lloyd (and colleague?)Marden

Nick Longman, Dorstone

John Levick, Luston/Yarpole

Heather Lort, Leysters and Moth.

Fiona Mac, Hereford Saxon Gate

Jeff Newsome, Wyeside Preston on Wye

Tony Norman, Pembridge

Felicity Norman, Leominster

Desiree Parish, Belmont Rural

Angela Pendleton, Leominster

Rosemary Pritchard, Lingen

Sally Ridler, Belmont Rural

Richard Pollard, Luston and Eye

David and Linda Price, Vowchurch group

John Ridler, OclePychard

David Rouse, Leominster

Jon Stokes, Tree Council and keynote speaker

Helen Stace, Herefords. Wildlife Trust,

Bella Thomas, Hereford Central Ward

Alan Tydeman, Eaton Bishop

Emily Warner, Eaton Bishop

Sally Webster, Putley

Apologies:

Mike Darley, Marden

2. 10-10.30am Registration and refreshments

3.Helen Stace, Senior Conservation Manager, HWT welcomed everyone, gave a brief background revue on Herefordshire Tree Forum (HTF) and partner organisations’ efforts to re-establish a TW network for Herefordshire, and introduced:

4.Jon Stokes, Programme Director of the Tree Council’s National Tree Warden Scheme.

JS outlined how the Tree Council was founded in 1974 as the umbrella body for UK organisations involved in tree planting, care and conservation. This followed the first National Tree Planting Year 1973 (with its slogan of “Plant a Tree in ‘73”). One of The Tree Council’s first actions (in 1975) was to organise National Tree Week and since then people have planted trees on behalf of The Tree Council as part of the winter planting festival. National Tree Week has become the UK’s largest annual celebration of trees and woods. The TC launched their national Tree Warden scheme in 1990, ‘to enable people to play an active role in conserving and enhancing their local trees and woods. Tree Wardens are volunteers, appointed by parish councils or other community organisations, and who gather information about their local trees and encourage local practical projects related to the trees and woods’. He reported there are 130 TW networks and 8000 TWs in the British Isles.

Jon explained the 4 basic jobs a volunteer tree warden (and his/her team/community)could cover:

• Identifytrees in their patch, including orchards, fruit varieties and veteran. This can be done via mapping and recording. Consider undertaking ‘an ancient tree recording’ of your area. He considered this is an especially important task for communities to do as many old and notable trees are currently not recognised and protected as well as they should be. One can buy a ‘tree measuring tape’.
  Jon suggested the county collaborated on a resource book or finding the ‘special’ trees via a tree trail for visitors and residents covering say, the 50 best trees in Herefordshire, as a county-wide project to encourage ancient and notable tree mapping. He noted other counties have done this but Herefordshire, with some of the most extraordinary ancient trees in the country, doesn’t yet celebrate its trees in the way other counties with less significant trees do. Heritage lottery funding was possibly available for such projects. The Holme Lacy pear was amongst the most valuable trees that would benefit from increased recognition and protection. Also the Bromyard oak with a 49’ girth, is arguably Britain’s biggest oak, situated on the Little Cowarne side of Bromyard, and accessible to public. He noted Herefordshire might consider recognising our arboreal heritage such as Plymouth has done by raising the status of its famous Plymouth Pear trees by including them on the city crest.

• Advocate for trees with both the public and statutory sector; that trees are essential constituents for a high value landscape, including urban GI, - to argue at all times ‘that trees matter’. Talk to neighbours – leylandii can grow to 300 ft. but nurseries don’t tell customers that, so talk to nurseries about improving their tree choice and advice info; hold events and talks, festivals, become an item on local radio, and know the law re enforcement etc.
  
• Recogniseproblems ie threats such as potentially damaging development; disease identification and monitoring – a major issue that is only going to get worse as increasing diseases hit the UK. For instance there are approx 2.2 billion ash trees in UK – Loss of ash will not only denude hedgerows and landscape, but will have an adverse impact on mitigating hill flooding. Jon argued the UK needs a list of substitute trees species to plant instead of ash, and this would need publicising nationally, albeit, some species should be appropriate to their locality. Poor understanding of the protection of trees e.g. when builders put their heavy plant under trees they can kill them by compressing roots; Owners/those managing newly planted trees often fail to water and maintain simply out of ignorance.
  
• Plant more trees: encourage local community and stat. sector to plant more trees – ‘the right tree in the right place’, appropriately planted and maintained. Build relationships with wider community – local residents, schools, Cllrs, landowners, Planning Control Officers and local experts etc. Education and advice-sharing on tree matters is key. Jon advised that tree-plantingcan be politically popular so making sure planting projects are properly promoted, plus supported by high profile VIP’s if possible, isrecommended.

The Tree Council’s main role in supporting networks is to advise on all aspects of running a network and giving advice – for TW’s,- through their training packs. This includes advice to steering groups on running training sessions as they are there on the ground to support their TWs. Jon confirmed he is happy to return next year to advise HTWN as it further develops. He confirmed there is much advice and best practice available besides TC: Copenhagen University research on sustaining newly planted urban trees using water bags a good case in point. Through better planting practices and aftercare, Denmark is getting 90%+ survival rate for urban trees compared to UK 45% on average. Check out their Greensurge report if interested in urban developments:

5.James Bisset – HC Parks, Countryside & Leisure Manager, reported on the history of the first Tree warden scheme which he set up in 1998, and coordinated, ultimately with 120 TWs over Hfds and Worcs.until 2006.His areas of expertise cover Herefordshire’s orchards, parklands, National Fungus day at Queenswood where he has been based until recently, and the general celebration of trees through education and specific events run at Queenswood, which he hopes will continue under the imminent partnership of HWT and New Leaf. James confirmed he is keen to contribute and support the training of Tree Wardens as and when the opportunity arises.

6.‘What local Tree Wardens can do and why they do what they do’.

Nicky Geeson – Breinton, Angela Pendleton – Leominster, Tony Norman, Pembridge and Richie Cotterill Kington TW and HTWN coordinator, shared their experiences:

NG: Creating a map of your area showing notable and ancient trees, TPO’d trees and those under threat essential so you know what you are working with. Look for opportunities to connect with other orgs and individuals to share info and best practice. Neighbourhood Plans also need to know an area’s GI and biodiversity assets.

AP: Build relationships with Housing Assocs, Council, schools, local orgs and residents. Educating people that trees really do matter is priority for her. Promote trees through free newspapers etc and argue for more street trees constantly!

TN: Understand and befriend the neighbours. They don’t all think like you so politics of neighbourhood a big issue to be dealt with. In his area, 2000 trees were planted in the year 2000, thus demonstrating what can be achieved if landowners can be persuaded to collaborate. TN agreed to act as a mentor for wardens in his area, an offer which was gratefully accepted. But more will be needed across county.

RC: Planting the right tree in the right place - engage, enthuse, educate & enable volunteers; Climate change should be promoting more thoughtful tree planting. Good to celebrate an area’s character ie Totneshas decided to promote itself as nut tree capital of UK; Kington is majoring on fruit trees etc etc.

RC explained thesubscription proposal put to Parish Councils’ inviting them to part fund the network by contributing a small amount - £25 minimum annually to underwrite county-wide training courses for TWs though out the year. Only with funding would HTWN be able to operate a training programme, and as the Tree Council national scheme was designed for Parish Councils to be at the heart of the networks, working with their communities via their own Tree Warden that the PC itself registers, it was logical they should contribute towards ensuring the scheme’s viability – if they wished to support a tree warden, that is. He added that a key role of HTWN’s steering group would be to act as ‘dating agency’ between potential TWs and their PC., in the first instance, and between area groups of TWs so they can best support each other across neighbouring parishes. This would happen though training, events, talks etc through the year. The ultimate ambition was to have a network covering the whole county, in time.

7.Question Time from floor. (NB: apologies for not capturing all q&a names).

Q 1. Are ash trees doomed – should they all be cut down? A. from JS: Pre-emptive strikes not advisable, as it is not known what % will survive, so unless an H&S risk ie showing signs and on a roadside, best left alone. There is a balance to be had re ecology, BUT, don’t ever say – as a tree warden, ‘that tree is safe’ – always refer issue to HC. A dying ash tree presents more of a risk than say oak because it sheds more limbs. You can report tree problems on the Forestry Commission’s website ‘Tree Alert’ ,especially signs of a disease, BUT, there is increasingly less value in reporting sightings of Chalara now it is evident across the country. He recommended a reference guide to download from the Tree Safety Group called ‘The common sense guide to tree risk’. The TC will be producing something similar but specifically for Parish and Town Councils soon.

ACTIONS: Jon offered to give a talk on disease recognition and response for network next year. A walk around Sutton walls where Ash DB was first spotted in county by local tree warden Mike Darley, will be arranged as soon as leaves reappear next year.

Q2. What is the relationship between Forestry Commission and Tree Council? A. from JS: They are separate entities, but work closely together. The FC’s remit is for woodland and TC covers non-woodland trees. More info on

Q3. Parish Council’s are now responsible for all 50k trees on public land in county. How can we best respond to this considerable undertaking? We need to be working much more closely with HC via locality stewards? A. JS: Its essential PCs and Locality Stewards work together to recognise the value of the trees in their landscape. West Sussex has produced an info pack for PC’s and their LS’s to support a proactive relationship – Herefordshire needs to produce one. Ask your parish council about this, or HTWN could approach on behalf of all TWs.

Q4. Jane Denny,Energy Management Officer, HC, who liaises with schools as part of her job, asked for TWs to find out which schools in their area are ‘Forest Schools’. It was proposed that JD might consider becoming the HTWN link between TWs and Forest Schools in county. To be discussed at future meeting.

Q5.Martin Gilleland a Postman asked if it would be feasible for the TC to utilise the Royal Mail to distribute flyers on tree Health for example, to the general public in the same way the hedgehog campaign has done recently? A. JS: Excellent idea which he would pursue.

Q6. There needs to be better dissemination of information on how to TPO trees formally, which ones are already TPO’d across county and if the public facing information is up to date? Answer: HWTN will send round a link to HC’s TPO process info and a digital map showing all TPO’d trees to TWs. ACTION.

Q7. Parkland Project query – Does HTF/HWTN have a relationship with Herefordshire and Worc Garden trust? A. Lewis Goldwater: H&WGT do work with Herefordshire Wildlife Trust (HWT). For more info on the Garden Trust go to To read Lewis’s report of the Parkland Project go to

Q8. How much funding is expected from PCs? A. JS: With 130 PCs – we have 20 so far – HTWN would have £3,250 in total to run training programme and support TWs and their PCs. Surrey runs its network on £10k annually, and recently paid £1k to produce its Tree Book, celebrating its notable trees. It should also be noted that PCs can if they wish raise precepts, which some chose to do for major projects they want to support.

8.Meeting stopped at 1pm for a networking break and eating of packed lunches for those who were doing the pm training workshops starting at 2 pm till 4 pm at Queenswood Arboretum

*During the break participants contributed suggestions for training topics as follows:

• How To Work With Your Parish Council
• Ash Dieback and how to help
• Safely Managing Ageing Trees
• TPO's and How To Use Them Effectively
• Garden Felling Permissions & How They Work

*The two afternoon training workshops were run by:

Lewis Goldwater (Turnham Green) ‘Notable Trees – I.D., Surveying & Recording’

And

Helen Stace of HWT on ‘Orchard Surveying – the People’s Trust for Endangered Species method’. For more info on these workshops emails for Lewis and Helen above.

If you have queriesor amendments on the minutes above please contact For any other query re HTWN go to or email HTWN coordinator or call: 07777 661252

The next HTWN Exec meeting will be on the 24th November. If you have suggestions for future events, talks or training, or items for the agenda for discussion – or you would like to contribute to meeting please let Richie Cotterill know asap on