The Saving South Cliff Gardens January 2020 newsletter has just been published. This includes:
- Current information about the tree management works.
- An appeal to find lost information about the memorial benches.
- Blog posts from the project’s two officers.
- News of recent work by the Friends of South Cliff Gardens group.
You can download it here: savingsouthcliffgardens.com/january-newsletter/ [5MB]
Perhaps one of the most important items in the newsletter is this from Southern Green:
“Many of you will have seen the Tree Works team out and about at South Cliff undertaking the proposed tree management works. We know it can be alarming to see large trees cut down and would like to reassure everyone that the long terms benefit to the woodland resource at South Cliff Gardens and the restoration of some of the original design intent will be worth the short term disturbance. Many of the trees within the gardens are in poor health and these trees account for many of the proposed removals. Some of the issues impacting tree health could be due to restricted growth opportunity, bark stripping from the large grey squirrel population or in some cases age/disease. In some areas, those fading trees are providing an ecological resource and, where safe, we have looked to retain standing stumps. As these stumps gradually degrade they could provide habitat and food resource for many creatures within the gardens. We are also looking at proposals for reintroduction of some lying stumps to again provide an ecological gain within the woodland.
In other places around the gardens, particularly in the Holbeck area, significant Sycamore regeneration has overcrowded areas of the woodland. This is affecting tree form and creating a monoculture with limited growth on the woodland floor due to the closed canopy nature of the densely growing young Sycamore trees. By thinning these areas we hope to open the canopy allowing light to permeate, giving some of the younger retained trees space to grow and to open views between the switch back paths of the park improving the sense of safety and security while also opening visual connectivity to the foreshore and restoring historic views. Through our proposed scheme of planting we will in the long term reinvigorate the planting at South Cliff Gardens: through specimen shrub and tree planting in the feature areas of the gardens including the Rose Garden, Italian Gardens and Shelters; through woodland edge planting along opened areas of woodland providing some understorey and shrub species to define the woodland edge and improve biodiversity and; through planting of a feature avenue of ornamental pear along the arrival path to South Cliff from the Cliff Bridge to the north of the site.”
As long as scarborough council has the attitude of running things down and later revamping, the town will continue to look shabby. The cold NE winds will determine what will survive, that’s the reason for the stunted growth to the trees. The dead wood helps protect the new as well as other things. It is failure to maintain the areas that’s now costing the town a fortune. The south side will soon marry the north side.
I totally welcome the restoration, having donated along with hundreds of others in Scarborough. It does seem a bit alarming at first to see trees being felled and what looks like very bare areas at this time of year but I have every confidence in the process. I admire the commitment of the Friends of South Cliff (prior to the bid being won) in up-keeping the Gardens. I hope that there is also the will and intention by the council to maintain them after the restoration so that they do not fall into such a state of disrepair and neglect again .