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A developer cannot be forced to replace the mature trees it cut down during construction of three giant warehouses in Preston – in spite of initially promising to retain them.
Councillors have been told permission was not required for the removal of the well-established specimens, at the junction of Eastway and D’Urton Lane in Fulwood – and that the tiny saplings now planted in their place are “acceptable” under planning rules.
However, members of Preston City Council’s planning committee have demanded the authority attempts to secure a better solution after hearing that the new trees will take 30 years to mature.
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There was uproar when their well-established predecessors were felled and burned in April 2021 in advance of work beginning on the trio of 12-metre tall, up to 72-metre wide commercial buildings – which have since been branded an “eyesore” by locals.
In an application approved by the city council that month, HBS Group had indicated that the trees surrounding the site would not only remain in place, but also be “reinforced” with further planting.
The authority subsequently began enforcement action against the applicant over a failure to seek further approval for its detailed landscaping plans before work got under way.
However, the latest meeting of the planning committee heard that the decision to cut down the trees was not itself a beach of planning permission – because they were not subject to a protection order.
Members were asked to consider revised proposals for how the site is landscaped – and advised by town hall planners that they should give the nod to the “infant” trees that have already been planted on the edge of the plot.
Back in February, a nearby resident ridiculed the replacement greenery. Mark McCormack blasted what he described as “tiny little twig trees”.
He contrasted them with those uprooted three years ago, which – at around 15 metres tall – would have served to at least partially screen the gargantuan grey warehouses that have since been built.
However, planning officer Jonathan Evans told the committee that attempts to persuade the firm to plant more substantial trees around the edge of the site had failed – putting the council in “a slightly difficult position” now that the applicant was seeking to “regularise” the situation.
“I know there’s been some understandable unhappiness about the removal of the landscaping, but that in itself isn’t a planning…breach,” Mr. Evan explained.
“It is unfortunate that [the replacements are] infant planting as it will take approximately 30 years…to mature – and whilst we have spent about 12-18 months trying to negotiate some more advanced planting, that [effort] hasn’t been successful, unfortunately.”
Alban Cassidy, the agent for the application, said his firm had not been advising the applicant when work was started before the necessary conditions – including approval of the landscaping plan – had been discharged.
However, he said while he did not “condone” the approach taken by the developer, that previous failure was”not itself a reason to refuse” the fresh application to vary the conditions attached to the original permission.
But committee members were unimpressed. Cllr Carol Henshaw – who is also the council’s cabinet member for climate change – said she was “furious” about what had happened and suggested HBS Group make a compensatory “donation” to the upkeep of Preston’s parks.
However, Mr. Evans said a formal demand to that effect would not be enforceable, as there had not been a “technical” breach of planning in relation to the tree removal. Mr. Cassidy said he would take the idea back to the firm, but warned could not “guarantee…a positive response”.
Cllr Daniel Guise asked why the decision to chop down the mature trees had been taken in the first place – but Alban Cassidy said he was unaware of the reason for the move.
Maxwell Green, one of the councillors for the Sharoe Green ward in which the development stands, accused the company of doing “anything…to save a few pounds” – and said it was easy for it to do better than planting “a handful of young trees no thicker than broom handle”.
“Mature trees can be purchased with full root balls and planted in a like-for-like manner – but they are costly and are likely too expensive for the owner who doesn’t want to do anything properly on this site,” Cllr Green said.
Germination of an idea
The landscape plan that the committee was asked to approve included the planting of 22 new trees – 12 of them being those already put in the ground along the border with Eastway to replace the mature trees that were destroyed – along with more than a thousand plants and almost 600 shrubs across the wider site.
However, the city council’s landscape design officer said in a report presented to members that the replacement planting on Eastway “does not fully compensate for the loss nor mitigate the harm to the visual amenity in the immediate to short term”.
The report stated that the officer had suggested “additions” that would help improve the scheme, but that these had “not been taken up by the applicant”.
That prompted deputy committee chair Sara Holmes to ask why the permission being sought for the revised landscaping proposal could not be made conditional on the developer implementing the type and level of planting suggested by the landscaping officer.
She said if the applicant was moved to appeal against such a condition, they would have to convince a planning inspector that 30 years was a “reasonable” length of time to wait for the replacements to reach maturity – and so do the job of screening the warehouses.
However, Jonathan Evans said the visual impact of the buildings would “diminish” over that period as the trees grew, while the council’s head of development management and building control, Natalie Somers, expressed concern that the committee was attempting to ”resolve problems through the planning process that …[are] not a breach of planning control”.
Cllr Henshaw suggested a “compromise” stipulation that the applicant must replace any of the new trees that died within the next decade with mature varieties.
However, while Ms. Somers suggested that might be a feasible option, the debate soon got bogged down in what constituted a “mature” tree.
The committee ultimately resolved to defer its decision on the new landscaping plan so that it could consider more “precise” conditions that it wanted to attach to any permission it decided to grant at a later date.
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