Most brownfield sites in London are sold to private development for building because there is a priority for housing. But green urban land owned by a local authority is now at risk of being used for social housing.
With the lack of brownfield sites, private developers are now turning to green field sites. As one Mayor in East London said, "They are only cutting down twenty-two trees. You would think it was a thousand, with the all the fuss".
There is never a replacement for nature when it is eradicated. It has been calculated that fifty-eight mature trees are felled each day in urban areas within the UK and in some areas, where the need is greatest, even more are felled.
Protected tree orders are no use against progress. The provision of saplings, which have a high mortality rate, are in no way a substitute for the loss of the environment/ecology.
There is an ever-increasing demand within urban areas to destroy the landscape and we must understand that once the landscape is lost forever, people will be living in an unnatural urban town or city.
Working with the environment/local ecology must surely be the way forward before the loss becomes catastrophic.