30-Oct-2022

Send an Email to HS2

Use this link to send an Email to Mark Thurston & the HS2 executives, demanding that they save Ilona.

Send Email

[ This should pop up an email you can send, after filling in the text; if it doesn't, please compose your own -
          To: mark.thurston@hs2.org.uk
          CC: Maddelyn.Sutton@hs2.org.uk; kat.stanhope@hs2.org.uk; Rohan.Perin@hs2.org.uk;                  saveleatherlaneoaks@gmail.com         ]

Using your own words is best, but you can also cut'n'paste some or all of our example below -

Dear Mr. Thurston

Re. Ilona the Lone Oak at Leather Lane, Great Missenden

I am writing to express my distress and disgust that HS2 plans to remove a veteran and heritage oak tree that is over 200 years old in order to replace her with a pile of earth (a ‘bund’) and saplings as part of your “visual and sound screening” because you want a “consistent landscape design”. I demand that you give proper and careful consideration to all the alternatives put forward by the Campaign to Save Leather Lane Oaks in order to save the Oak. She has been part of the Chilterns AONB landscape for over 200 years.

We are in a time of climate change and we really need veteran oak trees to help to lock carbon in the ground, process CO2 and prevent more flooding.

Newly planted oak trees are unlikely to ever attain the proportions of existing veteran trees, due to the activities of the grey squirrel population. This makes the retention of existing oak trees even more vital to maintain the ecology of the AONB, particularly as Ilona is a Category A specimen, one of the finest of her species

You are obliged to follow your own Environmental Statement (ES) and the Mitigation Hierarchy, which are embedded in law, and must AVOID harm where possible. Therefore, as it IS possible to avoid felling this veteran oak, then you MUST do so. I have been informed that she has a Root Protection Zone of 13.30 metres. A 13.30m RPZ would require only around 40m of noise barrier/retaining wall to protect the tree & provide noise insulation, as opposed to the landscape bund that you are proposing. Ilona is also over 75m from the track centre, and presumably outside the security fence, so there is little risk of interference with the line, even in the unlikely event of her falling during a storm.

We have already seen so much needless destruction just in this small part of the Chilterns. HS2 has destroyed ecology without need or the required surveys.

Here is an opportunity for you to show that you do have regard for laws to protect biodiversity, including the protection of veteran trees (needlessly felled by HS2 at Kings Lane and Grimms Ditch nearby). This is also an opportunity for you to prove that you do have regard for the local community’s heritage and their opinion.

It would be a very strong public demonstration of your commitment to the Environmental Statement and respect to the heritage of our community, if HS2 confirmed that it will continue to protect Ilona’s roots from harm and design an alternative visual landscape barrier around her leaving her in situ for many more years to come.

I look forward to hearing from you.