When I moved to Kingston around twenty years ago this site was a disused coal power station that was screened from the public gardens in front by tall poplar trees. The Council allowed flats to be built on the site to the height of the chimneys that had been there before, making the new building much more dense and oppressive that the old power station. They are also much uglier, but that's another story.
The Council then cut down all the trees that screened the site, despite them being on Council owned property. Their claim was that they were all diseased and dangerous but the strong suspicion was (fuelled by the Lib. Dems. well deserved reputation for caving in to developers) that they had been removed to provide the flat owners with river views.
The campaign to keep the trees attracted national attention and a number of people moved in to the trees, and in to tunnels, to try and keep the developers at bay. Sadly they failed.
The only saving grace was the Lib. Dem. Council said that they would replace the felled poplars with a mix of other tall trees.
Over the years the new trees did grow and did start to obscure the banal block of flats and to restore some privacy and tranquillity to the park and the path through it that follows the river.
Suddenly in a wanton act of brutality all of the trees have been chopped off to the height of the railings destroying the beauty of that section of the park and, surprise surprise, restoring the view of the river from flats.
So a few residents of expensive flats gain at the expense of the hundreds of us who walk through and enjoy the park every day. As in Richmond, the Kingston Lib. Dems. talk Green but continue to cut down healthy trees.
I used to live in Richmond Road straight up from the Boater's Inn and used to walk a lot along the river. When I had moved to Isleworth I still used to come down to Kingston to walk along there, and I was disgusted when I saw that those tall trees had been felled.
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