Don’t let 200 year old tree in Hull fall victim to another Amazon warehouse - Yorkshire Post Letters

I am very surprised that the planning authority, East Riding of Yorkshire Council, are allowing the felling of a 200 year English Oak tree to make room for another Amazon mega size warehouse (The Yorkshire Post, December 9, 2023).

What is upsetting is that the Head of Planning in East Riding is not listening to local residents and ignoring the petition signed by over 3,600 residents and walkers to the area.

An oak tree of this stature which has been around for over two centuries, cannot be dug up and transplanted due to the well developed root structure which will go far beyond the canopy of the tree in search of rainwater, especially after recent dry summers.

The tree will support hundreds of insects from moths, flies and beetles which rely on the habitat created by the veteran tree from the crevices in the bark, to the decomposing leaf litter which is topped up annually when the tree sheds its leaves each autumn as the temperature becomes colder and day length becomes shorter.

The fact that the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, has an Earth Fund for planting many trees on sites in the countryside where his mega warehouses are replacing existing trees which have been there for hundreds of years means nothing.

Part of this Earth Fund should be for the establishment and maintenance of existing trees on his business parks.

I hope that the new acting chief executive of East Riding of Yorkshire Council, Mr Alan Menzies, who was the director of Planning and Regeneration, will have a sympathetic ear for the many residents' concerns and prevent it being felled.