Our campaign was started to try and get Plymouth City Council to incorporate more of the healthy, mature and much loved trees on Armada Way into the new design. Now most of the trees are gone, we are fighting to save the remaining ones, and attempting to hold the council to account in the courts because we believe that they acted unlawfully.
Plymouth City Council embarked on a military-style night time felling operation on March 14th 2023 to cut down our city centre urban forest. We obtained a last-minute, out-of-hours High Court injunction and stopped them, saving 20 trees.
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"These trees were the green lungs of our city."
The trees the council plan to plant will take decades to achieve anything like we had.
Here are some of the trees we lost
Here is what Armada Way looked like before March 14th 2023.
Who supports us?
We have the full support of Plymouth Tree People and Environment Plymouth.
The following organisations supported our call for a pause and a review in December 2022: The Woodland Trust, Devon Wildlife Trust, Arboricultural Association, Plymouth Cycling Campaign, Plymouth Green Party, Plymouth Lib Dem Party, Plymouth Civic Society, Luke Pollard MP, and an increasing number of Green, Labour and independent councillors.
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Donate to our CrowdJustice fundraiser. So far over 1,000 kind and caring people have donated.
Write to your councillor and let them know what you think.
What were Plymouth people saying?
We have spoken to hundreds and hundreds of people about this devastating loss to Plymouth - here is a selection of what they've said.
Our petition, which has been signed by almost 17,000 people was presented to Plymouth City Council on January 30th 2023. Watch the video of our presentation here.
Plymouth Tree People (formerly Plymouth Tree Partnership) stood shoulder to shoulder with STRAW throughout the campaign.
If you live in Plymouth and are interested in trees, please consider becoming a member - it's free! You'll also learn about PTP's important work across the city.
If you want to help us with our campaign, if you've noticed something happening on Armada Way that shouldn't be or you just want to say hello, email us.
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We believe the council are greenwashing
Here are examples of some of the things they've said
How many species of tree were there on Armada Way?
There were 37 species along Armada Way at the moment, which is over twice as many as the 13 or 14 species the council plan to plant/retain. Remember: the less species in an area, the greater the chance of disease wiping them out.
During our campaign, while all of the trees still stood on Armada Way, we encouraged Plymouth people to download and share posters, to put them in the windows of their homes, cars and places of work. Many of you did, which really helped spread awareness of what the council were doing to our wonderful city centre green space.
Here are some videos. There are various media appearances. One shows how the council instructed a company to cut down and chip a beautiful Sorbus and some palms at night. Another video shows just how much we will be losing. See how bare the section outside the House Of Fraser looks. The new redevelopment will take ten to fifteen years to look even this green, and decades more to gain any kind of maturity.
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Thank you.
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