UKC

Maybe I’ve missed the memo (I’ve been a bit lax about Peak Area meetings recently) but there’s been some more tidying up at Aldery Cliff.  Several large trees have been felled from below the November Wall area.  Clearly a professional job judging by the neat pile of big logs and all the chipping liberally distributed.  And the agricultural tyre tracks.

I’m guessing the excuse is going to be that they were ash trees?  This place looks more and more like an over-gardened suburban climbing facility.

Peak Area meeting in a few weeks time. I'll try and find out what happened before then. If it was infected ash there isn't much of an alternative.

But it will have been discussed at the Peak Area meeting before it was done, right?

And, unless an infected ash tree is dead and causing a danger to the public, there is an alternative, especially in an SSSI.

Hi Dave

This work was indeed carried out by BMC contractors to deal with ash trees effected by ash dieback which had reached a point where they were unable to recover and would become steadily more hazardous over time. A medium sized dead sycamore was also removed from the top of the crag. This work was discussed and approved by the BMC's Land Management Group and as it was a safety issue which we were obligated (both legally and morally) to address as a responsible landowner, we had to carry out the work without further consultation. Henry will report on this at the next Peak Area meeting though to keep everyone in the loop.

The trees that have been felled were identified through a tree safety survey carried out by a professional arborist. These surveys only consider trees that could pose a hazard to people or property, but in this case given the size of the trees directly above the crag it was clear that if they were allowed to continue to decline and become structurally unstable, at some point they would pose a danger to climbers on the crag or along it's base. An key consideration is also that if trees with dieback are left for too long, they become dangerous to fell as the timber becomes structurally weak and so how the tree will behave when felled becomes increasingly unpredictable. So once trees reach the threshold of no longer being able to recover from the disease and that removal is needed, felling before they become so unstable is important. As much as I don’t want to be felling trees unless we have a very good reason, there was no safe alternative in this case.

Unfortunately the week the team had booked in to carry out the felling was one of those horrendously wet ones back in Feb and we needed to get the work completed by the end of Feb so as to avoid nesting season, so the machinery did churn up the ground a fair bit. This is why they have left the stems in timber piles – so they didn’t have to use their machinery for anything other than the felling itself and moving the timber into a safe position. They will return once the ground is drier to remove the timber.

I hope that gives a bit more insight into why the work was carried out and rest assured, we certainly aren't wanting to cut any more trees down unless they pose a genuine risk to people's safety using this or any other BMC crag.

Rob Dyer, BMC Access & Conservation Officer (England)

Hi Rob, thanks for responding.  I appreciate that, once you've taken professional advice and the spectre of third party liability is raised, your hands are tied.  It's one of the disadvantages of being the landowner.  However, given the previous history of reckless defoliation, I think more care might have been taken to publicise this ahead of time.

Considering the wildlife implications, I think it would be far better to leave the remaining logs in a stack on site, rather than having them tidily removed.  Maybe not exactly in their  current position, but they would provide valuable cover for years to come, and as they rot, habitat for wood-boring insects and saprophytes.  In any event, they will take some moving without the right equipment.

I didn't go along the top of the crag, so I haven't seen which sycamore was cut down at the top.  I do know that the cable along the top wasn't doing the trees there any good.

Ironically, I was trying to follow the line of Deceptor (purely as a puerile completist) and ended up climbing up the now rather hollow and spooky poisoned stump of one the trees killed in the last round of gardening.  There's certainly a public safety issue developing there!    

Alderly used to be one of my favourite local evening crags - cycled past a couple of weeks ago and it's apparent it's going to take over a generation for the crag to recover. Very sad.

Thanks to the BMC for sorting out the initial mess, and now dealing with Ash die-back.

Ash die back is going to be a nightmare for all rural landowners, and its going to make a massive impact, especially in ash dominated woodlands in places like the white peak.

To compound matters, infected ash are much more unpredictable and the advice is to use more mechanical harvesting to protect operators. This is going to lead to much more heavy machinery and ground damage, especially if its wet.

So... much more unpleasantly ploughed up land and big areas of clear fell. It will be generations before affected landscapes recover 

And it probably isn't even the worst plant disease o  the horizon

In what way? I climbed there before the tree cutting, and since. At least last summer it was easier to access routes particular to the left as so many of the nettles had been trampled down. Sure, it will take a long time for big tree to grow a new, but in some ways from a climbing point of view things are easier now.

It’s certainly true that the routes near the cave are accessible now - we should get them done!

I've been meaning to message you for weeks - will do so soon! Currently I'm off work with dreaded lurgy - but considerably better than I was last week, so the possibility of going outside and climbing doesn't seem quite as unlikely as a few days back!

Which end is the cave? Not the right end where big bits are falling off and they tell people not to climb I'm hoping! :-/

No, the other end.  Sword and Stone and High Frontier need ticking - zero recorded ascents on here so far!

I'm not especially surprised there are no recorded ascents yet. The climbing on both is worthwhile but tough, to vegetated ledges, and getting off can be a faff.

I'm not sure we are going to see large scale clear felling of big areas of ash dominated woodland. There is no need to fell diseased trees if there's nothing significant in their fall zones such as public paths or picnic sites