What is Next with the Trees of St Giles Hill Park

Council work is well under way to address the most immediate issue of ash dieback on trees throughout the park, particularly those by the path from the top of the steps and leading to the main viewpoint, though there are ash trees in other parts, needing attention, too.

A main stand of Ash on St Giles Hill.

This includes trees dotted around the Park especially those on the tricky to tackle ash on slopes down towards the Chesil Car Park. At the end of last year, I happened across a contractor being briefed by the WCC Tree Surveyor near the Chesil tunnel entrance and peering up the slope. There was a lot of thought going on with the task under consideration and the inevitable cost being considerable tackling works on a precipitous slope like this.

When will the work be done?

The answer is as soon as possible. In the Park, the trees have been assessed and tendering done. An aim is to undertake the work before the bird nesting this year, but it isn’t a simple matter. Overall WCC manages over 32,000 trees and on St Giles Hill we have around 750 of them. Across the district there are many ash trees amongst all these trees and those in the worse condition and posing a safety issue may mean switching priorities. Then again, we might have severe storms which, again mean that priorities move. Add to this the limited availability of trained contractors and budgets and the challenge of hitting a particular window for work is not easy.

Anyway, the work is planned and the approach is within the WCC tree strategy. The later managing of the ash is also planned to be one of allowing regrowth from the stumps and then cutting back on a coppice rotation, probably every 7 years. This keeps the tree-scape, albeit to much lower and manageable heights.

The work planned will also include some limb work, for example where the Corsican Pine at the Viewpoint is damaged and imbalanced. The Pines, incidentally, are pretty resilient as we get the climate and weather changes we are now experiencing. This is unlike many other trees such as oak and beech, which might be called water guzzlers and not well-suited drought periods to the top of chalk spur which the Park essentially is.