COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

South Dublin County Council Crest

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, May 10, 2021

QUESTION NO.28

QUESTION: Councillor F. Timmons

To ask the Chief Executive for a report into how he plans to address the issue of tree and hedging been lost due to building and development and how this will be monitored? Will he consider the additional planting of more than current targets due to the Climate Emergency we face ?

REPLY:

The County Development Plan, which is currently under review includes policies and objectives in relation to the protection of trees and hedgerows on development sites. The implementation of these policies generally take the form of the Developer being required to submit a full arboricultural survey of all trees and hedgerows on site reporting on their condition, location, size, quality and making recommendations on their retention or otherwise. The arboricultural report also details how retained trees and hedgerows are to be protected during the course of construction. The Council frequently conditions the retention of trees and hedgerows on site and requires Developers to submit trees bonds that help insure the protection of retained trees and hedgerows. The monitoring of the protection of the trees and hedgerows on these sites by an qualified arboricultural professional is required by a condition of planning and a second monitoring occurs at the release of the tree bond stage. These measures have proven very successful in the past. In the development of the Clonburris SDZ Planning Scheme a commitment to protection of hedgerows; that should result in no overall net loss of hedgerows on site was included. This is something that may be considered in the review of the current development plan. 

The Council's Climate Change Action has the following actions including:

The Climate Change Action Plan includes a number of objectives relating to tree management, increasing the tree canopy in the County, management of hedgerows etc and these are currently being implemented and will continue to be implemented through the lifetime of the CCAP and beyond.

As part of the delivery of its Tree Management Strategy; the Council outlines a programme of tree planting each year and, in recent years (with the exception of during recent Covid restrictions), has increased numbers of newly planted trees year on year; with the number of trees planted per year increasing from 1,000 in 2017 to a target of 2,500 in 2021. 

Prior to recent years, tree planting focused on replacement planting where trees have been removed, and this for the most part has been in roadside margins.  The space available for tree planting in roadside margins is obviously limited and it is affected by the existence of services in the margin which cannot then be planted over.  The review of the Council’s tree policy is currently underway and, amongst other things, will examine this matter to identify how tree planting can be increased, and this will examine all potential locations including estate open spaces and parks as well as the type of planting to be carried out. The planting of 2500 trees across the county is broken down as follows: 1000 trees at street locations, 500 trees in parks and open space sites and 1000 whips or young trees as part of the planting of an urban mini forest programme on a trail basis. These are small, dense, rapidly growing plantations of native species in an urban setting. The trial will be reviewed in 2021/2022.

The Tree Management Strategy also includes for the retention of mature trees in public streets and open spaces. The retention of these mature trees in public streets and open spaces, with their ability to sequester carbon, absorb water, mitigate the heat island effect and improve air quality are an important part of addressing the Climate Emergency.