I have made a formal complaint to Tower Hamlets Council about the issues of tree planting, tree growth, plant maintenance and the prospective bee hive.
Rosebery House is part of the estate falling under a preservation area. It is a relatively low building and nested in between the higher buildings towards the park near the Regents Canal and Sankey House.
Rosebery House had been planned as a block of flats, surrounded by rose bushes. Parcels of land were left around the building for the rose bushes.
Less and less of the rose bushes are still in place or being maintained.
Over the years of my presence on this estate, I had reasons – severeal times – to complain about trees being allowed to grow too near the actual walls of the building.
Then I was told that the actual landscape gardeners have no power to remove tree saplings as they have a special tree department to deal with this.
Unfortunately too many trees are allowed to grow too near to the walls of the building. Subsidence is a definite danger. As our summers become dryer, the deep-rooted large bushes and short-cut trees, especially around the back of Rosebery House, may cause permanent damage to the building.
I understand that it is the land-owner who is responsible for this and that is Tower Hamlets Council.
The Rights of Light Act 1959 states that if a property has received daylight for the last 20 years (the minimum prescribed period), they may be entitled to continue to receive that light. We have a tree – large shrub growing very near the walls of the house. Despite having complained about this around 10 years ago, when it was cut down, it is now again allowed to grow. The tree takes away all light from 2 ground floor flats. It is now 3 meters high and restricts access to the rubbish chute and hangs down. This can also be dealth with under the Anti-social behaviour act that this tree is allowed to do this.
In that context, the occupants of the flats, which had recently fruit trees planted in front of them will soon realise that those fruit trees will diminish day-light influx severely. I would encourage the residents to complain about those fruit trees being planted right in front of their flats. The fruit trees were planted by the Residents Assocation with permission from Tower Hamlets Homes. Yet the land-owner, Tower Hamlets Council is responsible and liable for any damage caused by trees on the estate.
There are a number of trees around the base of Rosebery House with substantive stems and large roots, they should not be so near to the house. Yet the landscape gardeners keep on trimming them whilst the roots grow larger and also the stems as it is evident.
This space was originally intended as roses area but the roses have gone and trees grown instead.
Further around the house, there are more and more large shrubs and trees allowed to grow, which could cause substantive damage in dry summers as they may cause subsidance.
It seems insufficient that the gardeners allow trees to establish around Rosebery House and merely trim them to a smaller size, so they appear bushy instead of not allowing them to grow at all.
We all love trees and need them but they should not grow too near to houses.
Parkview Estate near Victoria Park 