Around the 29th October 2015 a lot of chainsaw activity was heard near the wood but unfortunately not acted upon. A few weeks later some members were moving the meadow cuttings into the edge of the wood when they noticed about 10 maturing trees had been completely cut down within the wood. Every tree was along the boundary with Sainsburys. Not only that, they were left in a right old mess with tangles of branches strewn all over the place.
There started some enviro-sleuthing. First we had to check with the council if they had ordered some works but omitted to tell us. They assured us they had not.
Next the finger of suspicion pointed to Sainsburys supermarket. One of their store managers insisted he had nothing to do with it but we weren’t so sure; a few weeks after the trees had been chopped, some works began on the supermarket roof next to the chopped trees… it looked as if the trees had been cut down because they were encroaching on the roof repairs. But instead of cutting the overhanging branches (which would be fine) someone had cut them at the base.
Turned out it was the Sainsbury’s contractors who do their grounds maintenance. We met with them, Gush from Sainsburys, Paul Highman and Adolfo Gonzalez from Southwark and it was agreed that there would be some compensation: whether that is money, new trees, help with the path, volunteers or a mix of all of those is yet to be decided. To be continued…