Ash dieback in the park
You might have noticed signs appearing on some of the ash trees in the park. In short, the Council has conducted a survey of ash trees around the City including our park and has concluded a large number are affected by the ash dieback disease. The disease (caused by a fungus; Hymenoscyphus fraxineus) causes weakness in the tree with initial signs being wilting leaves, then structural weakness in the trunk, leading to the tree being prone to toppling over. Obviously this poses a safety risk to park users and diseased trees must be felled.
So what does this mean for park users? It will profoundly alter the appearance of the park. Naturally the Council will not fell all ash trees overnight, but the disease affects a majority of them and over time we will lose them. Some of these are likely quite old and are sizeable enough that their absence will be obvious. The Council plan to replace the trees, presumably with other species, but the timeline on any of this not known.
See also this article in the Glasgow Times for more information.
Hi Peter, I’ve started to explore if and how people in the local area could do soemthing to prevent such a large scale loss. Is this something you or others have been looking into?
I haven’t personally, but you may want to try contacting Janet or some of the other FoQP members that are in direct communication with the Council. Alas, my time is limited to updating this website at the moment.
Thanks Peter, I’ve sent an email to FoQP.