Working with Residents

Alongside our established Friends groups and volunteering, we are also looking at how we can work with residents to enhance our local environment for generations to come.  

Elstree Hill South

Thank you to all the residents who came forward and helped us decide what was the best way to replant the area on Elstree Hill South/Coates Lane. Residents will know we had to fell a large copse of mainly ash and some elm that were diseased and a danger to the public.  We asked residents how they want to see the area replanted and have a clear winner – to replant as a wooded copse. Residents valued the habitat that this gave for local wildlife as well as the screening it offered from the traffic on Elstree Hill.

Since felling the diseased trees we have cleared substantial hidden fly-tipping and litter picked the area. We have completed a further assessment of works that need to be done to make the area ready for planting. This will involve grinding out and removing some of the old stumps, and some soil preparation and improvement. We will complete this by end of October ready for planting.

We will be planting a mix of native trees and shrubs of varying sizes. We want to plant as many large trees as we can to make an instant impact but will have varying sizes from 2m down to 40cm. This is because smaller trees will establish better over time. Having a range of heights of trees will also provide a denser copse that will be more attractive to wildlife and provide better screening as they grow. Importantly we will be planting a mix of 17 different species of native trees and shrubs – this should reduce risk of disease in future as well as providing more variety of habitat for wildlife.

We want to plant the trees in November but we will be relying on advice from nurseries about when is the best time for them to be lifted and replanted. We plan to plant about 90 trees of 1m or more in height and a further 400 whips to replace the 175 trees we felled. The specific trees and shrubs we have ordered are: