Trees
Catalyst is totally committed to maintaining and improving the local environment in and around Wornington Green as part of the regeneration.
We have worked to retain as many existing trees as possible while also planting more new trees, as we deliver approximately 1,000 new homes with no loss of social housing and restore the area to its original Victorian street pattern.
However, we have to remove some trees in order to build the new neighbourhood, and we of course understand that some in the community feel strongly about this.
We will always listen to our residents to make sure they are part of this development, and that they can have meaningful input wherever possible on how we deliver the remaining phases of this regeneration. However, we must balance this with our core aim of delivering these modern new homes for social rent for our customers on Wornington Green.
What we’ve done so far
Catalyst has completed Phase 1 and Phase 2A of the regeneration and has carried out significant road realignment works to create Murchison Gardens, the new road that connects Portobello Road and Wornington Road. We had to remove several trees as part of these and other works to do with the regeneration, but we were also able to plant 102 new trees across the new development since the regeneration began.
More recently, Catalyst removed 35 trees in February 2020 as part of preparation for Phase 2B. 8 trees are still to be removed in this phase, but this will not happen until after demolition work has begun.
Work to come
Catalyst is now proposing to plant significantly more trees in the remaining phases and has actively looked at new strategies to retain more existing trees on the estate.
In Phase 2B, we will be planting 69 new trees rather than the 12 included in our original master plan. In Phase 3, we had originally planned to remove 41 existing trees, retain 7 and plant 19 new trees. Now, we’ll be retaining 11 existing trees, planting 41 and removing 33.
These new trees will be a mix of several different species and will be spread across the public realm and in residents’ gardens. We intend that all new trees will be semi-mature rather than saplings, but this will need to be agreed with RBKC.
The table below summarises the proposed location of trees yet to be planted on the redeveloped estate:
|
Phase |
Public Realm |
Adventure Playground |
Private Gardens |
Total |
|
2b |
22 |
0 |
47 |
69 |
|
3 |
25 |
16 |
0 |
41 |
|
Total |
47 |
16 |
47 |
110 |
Once the regeneration is complete, we hope to have a net gain of 81 trees across the new neighbourhood.
Athlone Gardens
As Athlone Gardens is owned and managed by the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea, any new proposals for more trees within the park will be determined through a separate consultation run by the council.
*Some of these figures relating to the removal of trees has changed from a previous version of this website. This is due to us incorrectly attributing trees to the wrong phase of the regeneration. We had also accidentally under-counted the number of new trees planted as part of Phase 1. Both figures are now correct, and we apologise for any confusion this has caused.
