BBCIf a tree that falls in a forest makes a sound is a perennial subject or debate, but in a district in northern London, it has certainly made a lot of noise.
The felling of a 500 -year oak earlier this month in Enfield has caused outrage and a national conversation.
First came the logging itself on April 3, which seems, few people noticed.
It was not until 12 days after the news in a burst of national headlines, after the account workers found the tree killed in the Whitewebbs park.
Then came a plot turn that few would expect: the owners of Toben Car Paint, a family specialization of the pub chain in budget toast that has a restaurant overlooking the tree, admitted that they knocked him down after a recurring council that was Dead.
The saga is a marked reminder of the emotional place that trees occupy in the national consciousness of Great Britain, which arrived not long after the iconic Sicomore Gap Tree was demolished in Hadrian’s wall in Northumberland.
That is obvious in Enfield, where the BBC News visited on Friday and found Amanda Dudley looking at the remains of the oak, its previous parts dispersed around a embroidered stump and cordoned off with red and white ribbon.
It was lowered to sneak and examine the 6m (20 feet) trunk of the tree more thoroughly.
“I can’t believe they have done this,” he said. “This is a friend of mine.”
Lockdown of a duration Amanda, an artist, walked through Whitewebs Park and says she looked at the tree every day. She has also drawn sketches.
“It was a real comfort to me,” he told me. “This is a place where I have walked for years and years. I have a fairly long relationship with this tree.”
Marina Cardozo, who walked through the area every day of the duration, felt similarly. “It’s so shocking, absolutely shocking,” he said. “500 years and cut it?”
While talking to her, other people were fit by the area to walk their dogs in the sun and take a look at what was left of the tree. One of them was Fatma Safer, who told me that he was “disconsolate”, while his friend Felicity Pegg added: “Once he’s gone, he has gone.”
A constant flow of gathering in the tree through the day, some taking selfies or photos of their relatives standing in front of him.
Several people who lived nearby told me that they could not remember that particular tree, but that they were still sad that a part of the park’s history had destroyed bone.
Other people were less interested. The little son of Pippa Chapman had other thoughts, simply saying: “It is a disproportionate bone.”
Unanswered questions
On Wednesday, the leader of the Enfield Council described the logging “an indignation” and said that all legal options were being considered. He made a report of criminal damage to the police, but it is understood that he sees him as a civil matter.
In a letter seen by the BBC this week, Mitchells & Butlers (M&B), which has the chain, apologized for the discomfort caused and admitted “we need to reach our protocols.”
M&B said it knocked down the tree for health and safety reasons after receiving unidentified contractors advice that “divided and dead wood raised a serious health and safety risk,” and emphasized that “necessary measures to guarantee.”
A planning document of the Enfield Council of March 2024 declared that the pedunulate oak, a species that can live for 1,000 years, was a “fine specimen” with high ecological and landscape value and had a life expectancy of at least five more decades.
While the Council and the M&B have said a lot since the logging, the premises and the activists want answers to the many removal questions.
Some people told the BBC that what most surprised them about the felling of the tree was how healthy it looked.
“He is obviously not dead,” said a resident. “It’s a misfortune.”
“There is nothing wrong with the tree,” said Derek, another place. “I can’t see what problems they could have caused.”
They also question what the wood will be used, currently next to the removal tree stump.
Hope and potential change in the future
The locals say that the tree saga points to a larger image than they are worried about that it is happening to the Whitewebbs Park, a place full of history: it is home to the house Whitewebbs Whitewebbs, it is where the gunpowder plot of Guy Fawkes is believed that the doctor schinados hatched hatching hatching eco
“There is a lot of controversy around here,” says a middle -aged couple who lives nearby.
In February, the Tottenham Hotspur Football Club of Enfield Council, a 25 -year lease to build a new female training field at the site of an old golf course in the park, with 11 pitches and a club house, despite the activists who fight against the proposals. The opponents argued that it would limit people’s access to the green space and impact wildlife in the area.
Woodland Trust has asked for more M&B transparency and the club. In the planning process to date, the Spurs commissioned the contractors to evaluate the forest there.
It is not suggested that the Spurs knew the decision to fall the tree or that it had any connection with it. A club spokesman told BBC News “The tree is outside our lease disappearance for our women’s training and girls training center.”
Enfield Council and M&B did not respond to additional requests for comments.
Over time, council officials can get some answers about what went wrong for Whitewebs Oak, and some locals have more hopes.
A large part of the trunk of the tree remains, and the people who visited the site told the BBC that they expected it to begin to grow again, even if it touched decades or centuries.
“I hope to go back here in a couple of months and I will see some fresh shoots,” Zack Whitbread told me.
That is what is starting to happen with the sicomorous gap, with multiple outbreaks that grow from the stump that experts expect that they can develop significant growth for new trees around the stump.
But perhaps the most shocking result of Tala in Enfield could be additional protections for the old trees of Great Britain.
An emergency trees preservation order has been imposed to preserve the remains of the Whitewebbs oak, since it is considered significant nationwide.
The Woodland Trust is now among activists who want a legally protected status for heritage trees. Like Adam Cormack, from the charity, he said: “This depression is a reminder for all of us that not all old trees are in a safe place.”
