A 120-year-old plane tree in north London has become an unlikely battleground this month.
Haringey Council erected a would-be fortress around it, summoning 16 guards from Arslan Security, and council bailiffs, to an empty residential street at 4.30am on Sunday 12 March.
The council claims the Haringey Tree Protectors (HTP) were planning to occupy the tree to prevent it being felled, with additional climbing ropes spotted amongst its branches, something the HTP has denied.
According to locals, multiple security personnel stood guarding the tree for more than 48 hours, and the tree protectors have called out the council for using “extreme and costly action”, when it wasn’t needed.
This single, innocent-looking tree is a test case between home insurers, councils and local residents.
Home insurers allege that plane trees, such as this one, are causing extensive damage with subsidence claims up 400 per cent since last year. The HTP say removing plane trees is lucrative business for insurers who would otherwise have to pay for expensive underpinning to properties.
In this particular case, insurers Allianz and Aviva claim that the tree in question is causing damage to two nearby homes and, last year, Allianz took action against Haringey Council for damages of up to £400,000. The council accepted liability, despite, according to the HTP, “questionable evidence” from the insurance company, and then failed to provide any testimony of how they came to this decision.
“This is an example of insurers seeking to avoid liability for the costs of underpinning and other work to mitigate increasing incidents of climate-provoked subsidence,” HTP told the BBC. “The insurers blame nearby trees so as to pass responsibility onto cash-strapped local councils in a practice that has become widespread nationally.”
A council spokesperson denied this and told H&P. “We have been fighting to save this tree since the original claim was made in 2015, but the technical opinion we have most recently received supports the requirement for this tree to be removed as it is contributing to the subsidence issues.
“Having considered this matter in the light of expert opinion, the council considers that felling the tree is the only option in the circumstances.”
The activist group has called out Haringey Council who, in 2019, voted to declare a climate crisis in the borough but, unlike other councils also facing “bullying” from insurance companies, is refusing to join its residents to protect London’s tree canopy.
Instead, the council has taken the group, which has occupied the tree since April, to court. In December, the judge in the case advised that action against the tree should await the results of enquiries by the ombudsman. Haringey had planned to fell the tree on Friday 17 March but it is now protected until the next High Court hearing on March 29.
“If the tree remains, the council risks facing an insurance claim of more than £400,000. Should the council be held liable, that cost would need to be met by us rather than an insurance company or any other organisation,” said a Haringey council spokesperson.
“Such a large sum of money would have a significant impact on delivering the key frontline service areas our residents rely on. We therefore had no option other than to apply to the Court for an order for possession of the tree and this was granted at the hearing in December 2022”.
Despite this set-back, Haringey Tree Protectors plan to continue their right to highlight “home insurers’ use of loopholes in the law to avoid contractual obligations”.
The council, meanwhile, described this as an exceptional case: “We are responsible for approximately 40,000 trees in the borough, and, in the vast majority of cases, only remove trees that are either dead, diseased or dying. However, there are occasionally times, such as the one on Oakfield Road, where a tree needs to be removed because of its likely contribution to subsidence to adjoining homes.”
