Friends of Ilkley Moor defend felling (From Ilkley Gazette)

Friends of Ilkley Moor defend felling

4:40pm Friday 23rd January 2009

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A cull of sickly and non-native trees has been taking place on Ilkley Moor.

It is a move that has drawn criticism from some walkers but the chairman of The Friends of Ilkley Moor, Owen Wells, says it is necessary to prevent Ilkley Moor becoming Ilkley Forest.

Concern stems from the felling of sycamores around Ilkley Tarn as part of Bradford Council’s efforts to manage the moorland landscape.

Several were cut down recently, along with unwanted Christmas trees which had started to flourish on the moor after a local person chose to plant them there.

A further cull of ‘scrubby’ trees close to Cowpasture Road is now planned, despite concern from some countryside lovers.

Mr Wells insists the growth of trees needs to be restricted as, if left to nature, the landmark moor would eventually become a large wood.

“If Ilkley Moor was left to its own devices over the next 100 years, it would first become scrub and then an oak and ash woodland,” he said.

“There would be no Ilkley Moor, there would instead be an Ilkley Forest.”

Heather moorland is a scarce type of landscape, added Mr Wells, with around 90 per cent of the world’s heather moorland being in the British Isles.

As woodland is a more common type of landscape, those who manage Ilkley Moor are committed to preserving the rarer moorland environment.

Removing some of the trees, he said, will allow other specimens to grow more healthily and give unrestricted views up to the Cow and Calf rocks.

Three fine examples of horse chestnuts were earmarked for the chop after it was found they were infected with bleeding canker, a disease that has started to strike trees in the valley recently.

“It’s a very great shame, but the whole idea was to open up the tarn and give much better views,” said Mr Wells.

Sycamore trees which were ‘almost falling into the tarn’ were also targeted, he said, to stop the stench of decaying vegetation from leaves which had dropped into the water.

As a volunteer who helps Bradford Council countryside workers on the moor, Mr Wells says trees have been cut back in the past, although the most recent round of work has gone slightly further.

Both the Friends of Ilkley Moor and Ilkley Civic Society were consulted before Bradford Council went ahead with cutting back three trees.

Critics of the deforestation have also attacked a policy of getting rid of non-native tree species on the moor.

“If trees are not kept under control they will, in a reasonably considerable length of time, take over,” said Mr Wells.

“There are beautiful stands of trees on the moor, such as the Scots pines above Willy Hall Spout, but the idea that we should leave trees as they are would, in the end, mean there won’t be any Ilkley Moor.”

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