4:29pm Wednesday 2nd May 2012
MR Gibson (Postbag, April 26) says the Salisbury Vision board has “gone walkabout”.
As a member of the Vision board, I can assure Mr Gibson we are still very much here.
The Vision proposals for the Market Place included replacing many of the existing trees with new mature trees of a more appropriate size to the location.
The reason for this was that the existing trees had not been maintained for a number of years and this has resulted in problems on and beneath the surface of the Market Place.
Additionally, some of the trees, particularly those along Oatmeal Row, were far too large and were obscuring the buildings behind. As we all know, these plans met with considerable opposition; there were some members of the public who did not want the existing trees touched in any way.
As a result of this, the responsibility for the Market Place project was relinquished by the Vision board and taken on by the Salisbury Area Board. Although the area board agreed the existing trees would not be replaced, it was widely acknowledged the trees were in need of urgent work to ensure their future survival.
Hence the recent pollarding and crown reduction work. It should be stressed that what we have now is the result of the public objections to the Vision proposals, ie what you see in the Market Place now is, ironically, the result of the public demand that not one tree should be touched. It is not the work of the Salisbury Vision Board.
If Mr Gibson would like to contact me I would be very happy to provide him with whatever other information he wants.
IAN NEWMAN Chairman, Salisbury City Centre Management
I AGREE with your poetic correspondent (Postbag, April 26) that pruning in spring is unwise, but please, the plane trees in the Market Place have been pruned, not pollarded.
For full pollarding look at the lime trees in Wilton.
JULIAN LORING Downton
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