Hither Green Trees project at the 2016 Hither Green Festival

Our fellow tree enthusiast and collaborator Justin Hannemann, whose own street tree regeneration project is now up and running - see: http://www.hithergreentrees.com/drive-awareness - will be hosting a stall at the 2016 Hither Green Festival on the opening day, Saturday May 14th. 

Come along to hear about the drive to replace lost street trees and to show your support for re-greening the streets of Hither Green - and beyond. 

Justin can be contacted via email at justin (dot) hannemann (at) google (dot) com or via his Twitter account @JustinHannemann . Details about the Hither Green festival can be found on their Facebook page or here on the Hither Green Community website: 

http://ourhithergreen.com/hither-green-festival-2016/

The Breakfast Club (that's not a club)

BrocSoc Tree Committee held the fourth of its "Tree Breakfasts" last weekend, in the Artspace at 57 Loampit Hill by kind offer of the owner Mary McGeown. Wonderful pastries were offered again, donated by Pistachios Café in Hilly Fields. 

These "Tree Breakfasts" are meetings, by invitation only, of those who are able to offer time and energy to help with our aim to increase the numbers of trees, and most especially trees in public space, in Lewisham.

Yes, trees in public space in Lewisham, not just Brockley.

Fifteen people from inside and outside the ward, united by a wish to promote such planting, met once again for inspiration and mutual support, to discuss the efforts of individuals, and to ensure that they are unduplicated and part of a wider plan. 

To date the Tree Committee has concentrated on conservation, building a partnership with council Tree Officers, and private fund-raising. Now, the combined energy and ideas at these new, wider meetings have resulted in ambitious aims to engage with policy-makers in the borough. The hope is to influence council policy, as it affects planning, planting vision, publicity, and of course the sponsorship scheme itself. All this now feels like a realistic prospect. The committee now works with, among others, an arboriculturist, a transport planner, and an IT expert. Its work and its ambitions have now been taken well outside Brockley itself, to include the whole borough. 

Wherever you live, if you have time and energy to join us in what we are doing, or simply want to learn more, please get in touch.

The ripple effect

It's been an interesting and exciting month or two. 

Word is getting out about the success of our work in getting more street trees planted in and around Brockley, and we are now in touch with the originators of two new significant projects in neighbouring parts of the borough, namely Catford and Hither Green.

This is really what we were hoping to achieve; a model that can provide the inspiration for other people out there to take up the challenge of getting their local communities galvanised and involved in the care of their local green space, and in particular, that extraordinary asset which is the local treescape. 

The Catford Street Trees initiative 

The man behind the Catford initiative is Harry Carnegie who has created the Catford Street Trees website (click HERE to open in a new window). 

Harry is aiming to raise the funds to plant 50 new street trees in Catford and has already been busy getting tree data supplied by Lewisham council out there in a format that the rest of us can use and understand. The results are really interesting and I encourage you to go over to his site and play around with the map (the map is now available from the tab list at the head of this page - clicking the Lewisham Borough Tree Map tab will take you straight to the map on Harry's website). What's really helpful to the those of us in other parts of the borough is that we can interact with the map to select our own wards, the species of tree, and the age and condition of the trees. The data is from 2012, so not completely current; a more current dataset is expected soon. 

Here is a snapshot of what Harry's Lewisham tree map looks like for Brockley ward: 

Each of the green dots is a tree - clicking on it will allow you find out more about the tree. 

Harry can be contacted via his website (HERE) or at this email address: 

info (at) catfordstreettrees (dot) org (dot) uk

The Hither Green initiative

This is a recent initiative being led by Justin Hannemann, a resident of Hither Green, who writes: 

Over the last couple of years I have noticed that the trees in our street here at College Park Close are not getting replaced, as they grow sick, die, or fall over.  For me, trees are an essential part of the landscape, breaking the hard edges of concrete, giving the birds a place to sing from and of course breathing oxygen into the air. They give children something to look up to and to explore.

Justin will be coordinating the effort in his immediate locality and hopes to be able to raise funds for new plantings this season (2015/16). The order window closes at the end of September as the trees need to be ordered and suitable planting locations finalised. If you are interested in helping Justin with this effort you can contact him here: 

justin (dot) hannemann (at) gmail (dot) com

In addition to the above, we are also working closely with the St John's Amenity Society and residents in Crofton Park. It's a really encouraging development that so many are now feeling able to make something happen in their own locality. 

We look forward to hearing from more of you in the coming months.