Madam,

Thank you to Patrick O’Brien for exposing the issue about the poplar trees due to be felled along the park boundary, behind Cambridge Terrace, Aberystwyth. I hope the residents realise how exposed the rear of their houses will be if it takes place. Trees cannot speak but they can express themselves and these make a most triumphant statement, especially in summer when the wind ruffles the delicate canopy of leaves and in winter we become aware of the beautiful pale spotted bark. I daily enjoy this unique little park through all seasons.Is it not a sledge hammer to crack a nut felling them all? Why can they not be topped out, managed and preserved (as should the Cyprus around the other side which regularly shed the odd bough or two)? How much is this act going to cost us the ratepayers?In response to the complaint about suckers pushing up in spring, has the resident not noticed these appear beneath the poplars every year and die back naturally – no other trees are produced as they are cut down when the grass is mown. Maybe the affected resident could follow the same procedure.

What a perverse suggestion that a few indigenous hawthorn or rowan planted by the maze would in any way compensate for the majesty of mature poplars. Observe how these other trees struggle in the centre of the maze or in Portland Street.

This issue was beautifully treated in the famous poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins entitled Binsey Poplars:“My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,All felled, felled, are all felled; ...”

Yours etc,Heather Williams

Portland St

Aberystwyth.