Who is Responsible?

My letter to Liz Ballard had been originally about the tree felling on Bole Hill and around the bridleway to the north of the Lee Stream. This is her reply extracted from the full letter:

Having spoken with her and voiced my reservations I'm in no doubt that she herself is relying heavily on the comments of the SWT Reserve Manager, Annabelle Kennedy, and has no direct experience of the site and the fellings. I hope she will contact me if this is not the case. My problem as so often with SWT is the way that dialogue becomes impossible because of an element of wilful misunderstanding promoted by a management culture. Everything in this response is just plain wrong and, I believe, knowingly so. That means it's pointless engaging  in discussion because there is calculated obfuscation from their side. Why should I get involved when I know that every means will be used to avoid being answerable to points raised?

 Let's look at what is said above.

The birch cutting was not, repeat not, in areas of dense birch dominated secondary woodland. It was not done to create spaces for other tree species to move in. The severed limbs and the stumps and the piles of branches complained about were on the edges of woodland where there is plenty of space for other trees to colonise.

Nothing that was said yesterday persuades me I'm wrong in assuming that a workforce was simply sent out to cut down a few trees on the basis that there are too many of them. This is damning if true and I believe it to be true having had no convincing explanation. Well away from the rather dense birch woodland is this small cluster of trees in a more or less open slope.

Ten stumps of recently felled trees are visible here. Some are Birch and others Scots Pine.

Why? At a time when there is more and more call for native trees to be planted on higher land to help combat flooding SWT have been cutting down trees that have regenerated naturally. This is shocking. It's certainly not dealt with in the reply I've received from the Chief Executive which has side stepped my concerns and given me the kind of response that's no explanation at all. It's no pleasure having to say this. But somebody has to take real responsibility.