I am a Celtic yoga teacher and mother of 2 with a background in health geography research and health behaviour programmes.

• Joined BTF 2023
• Friends of St George Park (FOSGP) committee member & biodiversity contact
• Initiated the development of the 'Managing for Nature plan for St George Park' co-ordinated between the FOSGP & Bristol City Council. The plan is being put out for public consultation in May 2024. Planting activities aim to start October 2024.
• Organises bi-monthly tree walks - Contact Ailie ailietam@hotmail.co.uk

I am a Tree Champion covering the St George Park area. I joined the Bristol Tree Forum (BTF) in 2023 to connect more deeply to the trees in my local area, to support native wildlife and to do my bit for Mother Earth. The BTF provided a mentor and access to online data about the trees in my locality and other useful sources of information. I had three excellent outdoor mentoring sessions with Dougal (BTF). I thoroughly enjoyed these sessions as they provided training in basic tree surveying and data inputting to the BTF database, tree seedling re-locating, introductions to other key contacts in the area and space to discuss what I could to do as a Tree Champion. I also attending the BTF AGM and a Park Forum meeting, which the BTF has strong ties.

The main green space in my ward is St George Park (1.69 acres) which is central to local community. After becoming a Tree Champion, I contacted the Friends of St George Park group who were extremely welcoming and supportive of my Tree Champion goals to enhance community connection to the trees and the wildlife in the park. After joining the FOSGP committee and beginning conversation with the Bristol City Council (BCC) I discovered that there was no tree planting or wildlife plan in place for the park. Along with the BCC Conservation Officer and by gaining advice from an ecologist at the Avon Wildlife Trust, we spent 10 months designing and developing a proposed plan which was assessed by several council departments.

In April 2024 the 'Managing for Nature Plan for St George Park' was approved by Bristol City Council to share for public consultation. The plan aims to enhance habits in the park through the planting of native trees, shrub, bulbs and wildflower, alongside tasks such as leaving deadwood, changing cutting regimes, removing invasive species of plants and trees etc. The plan aims to establish new habitats and enhance biodiversity in existing areas by planting an orchard, reviving pre-existing wildflower meadow, reduce cutting to encourage tussocky grass to grow and regenerate a section of woodland edge. This will help to attract a variety of pollinators, invertebrates, a range of birds including owls and small mammals, such as bats. To help people connect more personally with the trees in St George Park and the surrounding areas, since October 2023 I have been organising tree walks which are led by local guide Gundula. Each walk focuses on a specific species of native tree and their closest relatives. The walks take interesting routes to meet the trees, learning along the route ways to identify the tree, understand their preferred habitat and the wildlife they support. Interesting facts are also provided on the cultural practices and traditional uses of the tree. I also organise Bat Walks in the park which are led by award winning local conservationist Steve England. The Tree Walks and Bat Walks are advertised on the Friends of St George Park Facebook page and Eventbrite page.

As Bristol Tree champions Kerry Chester, Anne Silber and myself applied for our first two Tree Preservation Orders (TPOs) in November 2022 to protect fourteen trees in Mead Street BS3. We also sought support from the local councillors.

Mead Street BS3 is part of the Temple Quarter and St Philip's Marsh Regeneration Area. In August 2022, the Bristol City Council gave planning permission to Donard Homes to build 221 homes on the former site of Barts Spices between York Road and Mead Street. None of the trees nor the hedgerow on the site were protected by the council. There is a legal obligation for planning authorities to include appropriate provision for preservation or planting of trees whenever they give planning permission. The Bristol One City Plan commits the council to increase the tree canopy of the city by 25% by 2035.

After granting planning permission, all the trees and the beech hedge on the Barts site were torn out and the ground levelled. At residents’ request, we visited Mead Street to inspect the remaining trees and identified a line of nine mature lime trees and a group of five maples. The photo below shows the limes and two maples.

With the help of the Tree Forum’s Chris Wallace, we mapped the trees including estimating the height of each tree, the extent of its canopy and its diameter at breast height (DBH) and checked for birds’ nests and wildlife. These records were used not only to plot the trees on the Tree Forum map but also for the TPO applications.

You can request a TPO for a single tree or for a group of trees or woodland. In the end we opted to make two separate applications treating the limes as one group as they formed an avenue down one side of Mead Street and the maples as another.

We had looked at the criteria the council had to consider, and we put together some key points for each group of trees to explain why we considered that the case for amenity and expediency had been made. For example, under the heading of amenity we included the fact that a local resident’s group said that cyclists and pedestrians valued seeing these trees. They provided shade in the summer and green interest.

As for it being expedient to make the order, we referenced the destruction of all the trees on the Barts site as it seemed possible that developers might destroy these mature limes and maples unless they were protected.

Update December 2023 TPO-1480 and TPO-1478 have Provisional Status, having been created on 2023-10-17 and 2023-09-12 respectively. Any parties have 28 days to present representations, so that period has expired for both. A TPO stays in force for 6 months and lapses if the LPA does not confirm the TPO in that time.