Sign the Petition – Prevent Tree Removal in South Stoneham Cemetery
At a Cabinet meeting on 15 July, a felling licence for 19 healthy mature trees and works on a further 10 on
grounds of “aviation safety” was approved. Southampton Airport has long wished to remove “obstacles”
to the flight path which means that the larger aircraft cannot take off with a full load in case of emergency.
We thought that the purpose of the runway extension was to enable the larger aircraft to take off fully
laden and secure the “viability” of the airport, but now it appears they want to extend the range of
destinations because the extended runway alone hasn’t resulted in sufficient passengers for “viability” and
planes to these more distance places still can’t take off fully loaded.
After two failed attempts at nearby Marlhill Copse and Mansbridge Lock, which the City Council stood
firmly behind and opposed tree felling, this third attempt has resulted in an unexpected turn.
In order to get the application through, the airport has gone directly to the “executive” and bypassed the
Planning Committee. It has asked for a felling licence and the City Council has said “yes”. This meant that
the current Tree Policy had to be hastily rewritten and adopted at today’s meeting, in the same item as the
tree felling licence, to give powers to Cabinet instead of the Planning Committee, in effect handing the
decision to a political group rather than a quasi legal entity which tries to look objectively at each
planning application.
At the meeting objectors asked the council to work with the airport to find an alternative solution that
would not involve the loss of so many trees in a sacred space, but it became clear that discussions had
been ongoing long before this issue became public, but possibly this was simply about what “mitigation”
the airport might offer. This may still be subject to further discussion, but even planting four trees for
every one felled won’t replace their environmental benefits for decades – and not even then if they don’t
survive to maturity in our warming climate.
The documentation presented to the Cabinet wasn’t just about aviation safety. It included economic
promises alleged to benefit Southampton, based on the airport achieving 4 million passengers per year –
despite it being capped at 3 million as a condition of the runway extension permission! None of the
economic harms were taken into account, for example health effects of noise, pollution, climate change
impacts, the loss of environmental benefits from these large trees, and the fact that increasing tourism
flights means more people spending money outside the region. We will be watching closely to see
whether the promised extra jobs actually materialise.
The path over South Stoneham Cemetery is 15 degrees off the normal flight path and the airport says
would only be used in the event of an “emergency.” Not mentioned at the meeting was the fact that this
emergency path would take planes directly over Mansbridge School. We wonder how safe they would be
in the event of such an emergency.
There is a wider point. In answer to some of the questions raised by objectors at the meeting, we heard
that none of the trees on Council owned land have Tree Preservation Orders on them. The Council says it
intends to treat them “as if” they have TPOs – but this is not the same, legally. We fear that our gloriously
green city with its abundant parks and green spaces may be now entirely at risk from developers who will
use the same tactics to gain monetary advantage whenever they deem it possible.
Sign the Petition – Prevent Tree Removal in South Stoneham Cemetery