If you want to see street trees as part of the redesigned George Street then the George Street 2025 consultation (runs until 26th March) is the last chance to make it happen.
Suggest them as an additional feature on Question 5.
At the 2018 George Street public consultation, the concept design included some trees, albeit informally positioned & v small specimens.
Unlike the current consultation, in 2018 specific questions were asked about the inclusion of street trees and the results were conclusive.
76% of respondents were in favour of the introduction of street trees on George Street, with 56% of respondents 'strongly' in favour of the concept.
Undeniably, a large majority of the public want to see street trees on George Street.
With such overwhelming public support you would expect the current design would have increased, or, at v least, retained the trees from the previous proposal.
Instead, they've inexplicably been removed from the scheme entirely.
A few recent events which make the decision even more baffling:
May 2019 - the Council declare a Climate Emergency and set a target for the city to become carbon neutral by 2030, placing sustainability & climate change at the centre of strategic and policy discussions.
September 2019 - Edinburgh City Centre Transformation (ECCT) approved.
Among its many excellent priorities is greening public space & introduction of green links.
George Street 2025 is a flagship project for ECCT and its centrepiece.
Jan 2020 - Edinburgh joins the Million Tree City movement, with target to plant 250,000+ trees within next decade, including prioritising planting of street trees.
Climate Emergency declaration, ECCT, Million Tree City, on top of overwhelming public support for street trees in previous consultation...
Shouldn't all this lead to the inclusion of trees in the new George Street 2025 design?
Whatever your views on the project, this is a last chance to have your say.
There's a great deal to admire & support in the current proposals - pedestrian priority, increased accessibility, largely traffic-free, active travel infra, removal of street clutter, high-quality materials, etc.
It's a bold & transformative plan in nearly every way with one glaring exception - the soft landscaping/street greening, which is underwhelming to say the least, under-scaled, incongruous & not designed to meet the environmental needs of future generations.
This is the last week to respond to the consultation on the George Street proposals.
Despite overwhelming public support & the Council's obligations on climate change & tree-planting, the street trees from previous proposals have been inexplicably removed.
Why?
The technical challenge of excavating tree pits in an historic city centre site shouldn't be underestimated but, as other cities have repeatedly demonstrated, the problem is definitely surmountable.
The only real obstacle is the opposition of 'stakeholders' such as Edinburgh World Heritage & the Cockburn Association. They argue that street trees were not part of James Craig's original vision for the First New Town and, of course, that's perfectly true.
Lots of good aspects to the design worthy of support, but the absence of street trees, despite consistent public support for their inclusion, is very disappointing.
Edinburgh is rightly proud of its green credentials, with more trees per head than any other UK city & regularly winning 'greenest' accolades. But there's one league table where it languishes at the bottom, and that's street trees.
Edinburgh has only ~8,500 street trees (a 22% decline since the 1990s) & barely 1% of its urban tree total. Similarly-sized Sheffield has ~36,000.
CEC recognises this & has prioritised street tree planting, yet there are still no trees in the current George Street redesign.
Historical perspective:
Systematic street tree planting in UK cities began in the 1860s, but Edinburgh's early progress was painfully slow & largely driven by the Cockburn Association, which encouraged the Council to plant more streets with trees with only limited success.