In setting the record straight as Toby Hull claims in his letter 'Tree work will benefit the Wandle', he fails to mention the word trout, despite the Wandle Trust's mission statement: 'We inspire and help people to protect wild trout and their habitat'. The facebook photo of the trust's chairman shows him studiously holding a rod over a river.

The group is linked with the Wild Trout Trust whose name headlines the Wandle Trust website and who boast that most of their members are fishermen.  

So Toby's claimed motivation of 'improving the health of the river and its surrounding areas' is not entirely complete: they also wish to restock the river from which anglers will benefit.

With that perspective clearer I do however support their other measures to restore the river and delight in seeing the few fish remaining after successive pollution incidents. But I draw the line at sacrificing the wild-growing trees. Now, at mid-point in the felling, lots have disappeared into a mulching machine, many are rendered ugly by severe pollarding, and the much-loved natural 'tunneling' is lost altogether.

Toby claims half of the felled trees are medium or small but that still means thirty five large trees will be lost.

When I spoke with him recently he conceded that replacing the culled trees with other less shady species had some merit but that there was no funding for that. I was surprised this seemed a new idea to him.

Since then the Woodlands Trust and Sutton's Woodlands Officer have both recommended a programme of replanting with hornbeam, alder or other slow-growing species. I have also spoken with perhaps thirty local people from residents to environmentalists who are sceptical about the felling but who Toby's consultation failed to reach. Perhaps a press release might have helped widen his coverage.

The chain-saws have seen off other groups of nearby trees. A line of willows along the 'Cut' on Wilderness Island has gone, to again provide more light to the water, together with a pair of old much loved chestnut trees. Although some trees will be replaced with saplings, the effect has been the loss of some of the seclusive 'wilderness' quality of the island. Network Rail has demolished a two hundred foot stretch of mature woodland from the river towards Highbridge; and Sutton's Biodiversity team has felled and poisoned a dozen forty foot willows between Victoria Avenue and the river.

So the Wandle Trust's cull unfortunately adds to other ostensibly well motivated schemes but which have the net effect of reducing our precious woodland with all its benign and timeless attributes. Let's hope there will be no more river pollution incidents otherwise we'll have lost the fish as well as the trees and gained nothing.

Jim Duffy
68 Birchwood Ave
Wallington