Road safety obligation makes it necessary to cut down poplars on Stollberger Straße
Around 25 local residents attended an information event yesterday at the "Lebensfreude" meeting centre in the Heckert area and were informed by the acting head of the Parks Department, Peter Börner.Peter Börner, Andreas Streich, head of the green space maintenance department, and Bernd Gregorzyk, head of the civil engineering department, about the necessary felling of 400 poplars on Stollberger Strasse. These trees on Stollberger Strasse between Usti nad Labem and Scheffelstrasse are now around 40 years old and need to be removed for road safety reasons.
The poplars were planted too densely in the 1970s, so that the trees compete with each other for food, water and light. Over the years, they have developed an unfavourable ratio of height to diameter and therefore often form deadwood.
Their location on an embankment also contributes to the fact that the trees cannot develop enough roots to stand securely.
The experts were able to fully explain the residents' question as to why the trees were not simply thinned out: "If individual trees were taken out, the remaining ones would provide far more surface area for gusts of wind to attack and could therefore become a danger to passers-by and vehicles," explained green space department employee Andreas Streich.
As poplars reach their natural vitality limit at around 40 years of age anyway, the city is now not only fulfilling its duty to ensure road safety, but is also redesigning the approximately 700-metre-long roadside in the Heckert area this autumn by planting other trees.
Trees with crowns of around 15 metres are desirable. These not only have an aesthetic and design aspect in the residential area, but such large trees also filter more fine dust out of the air. However, noise reduction can hardly be achieved with street trees, explained civil engineering office manager Bernd Gregorzyk.
The tendering procedures prescribed by the authorities are now pending. The city wants to fulfil the wishes of residents not to plant allergy-causing trees such as birch trees at this location. The planting of sycamore trees, for example, is conceivable. How many new trees will ultimately be planted in place of the poplars has yet to be determined based on tree species and growth.
Depending on the outcome of the tendering process and the bids submitted by companies
the poplars are to be felled either before the birds start to breed at the end of February and into March, or in the autumn after the growing season. In this way, the city is also fulfilling its obligation to protect nature.
The city will issue a separate press release with information on when exactly this work on Stollberger Straße will begin and what traffic disruptions it will cause.