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Forder Valley Road to close for tree works.

an example of a tree with Ash Dieback

Forder Valley Road will be closed for five nights next week so that essential tree works can take place.

The road will be shut from Forder Valley (Leigham) Roundabout to the bottom of Novorossiysk Road from Monday until Friday from 7pm until 6am each night.

Felling trees is a very last resort but unfortunately, there are a number along this stretch of road that we have identified as having Ash Dieback.

Ash Dieback, previously known as Chalara, is a disease of ash trees caused by a fungus that weakens and kills ash trees. An example is pictured above. 

Clearly, we can't risk leaving trees like this near such a busy road so it is with a heavy heart that we'll be felling around 70 in total over the five nights.  A detailed ecological survey has been conducted to reduce and mitigate any disturbance to bats, badgers, dormice and birds.

Sadly, it is likely that most ash trees will suffer from the disease over the coming years, but a small percentage may have some natural resistance so we will be only removing trees posing the greatest risk and have no chance of recovery.

We do have plans to mitigate for the loss of these through our Plan for Trees. We'll be using the 3-2-1 replanting strategy, where we replant three trees for every large tree lost, two for medium and one for small. In this case, it equates to 228 trees.

Find out more about Ash Dieback

Find out more about our Plan for Trees