“We welcome Bromley’s U-turn on the trees. It was the Crystal Palace Campaign who, learning a month ago of Bromley’s secret plan to fell over 140-mature trees on the Park’s top site, mobilised national and local political opposition. Without that, we do not doubt that the trees would already have been massacred. Bromley’s own counsel was forced to acknowledge the plan on February 8 in telling the Court of Appeal that unless the trees were felled by the start of the nesting season on March 1 there would be unacceptable delays to the construction of the proposed 20-screen multiplex.

The CPC demands that Bromley give a further public undertaking that the trees will not felled or otherwise interfered with, in any step short of total felling, while legal issues both in the Court of Appeal and the European Commission remain unresolved. We, along with the wider community, will also wish to know exactly what Bromley means by their confirmation that there are no plans to initiate clearance of the trees “…in the immediate future”.

Ken Lewington, Vice-Chairman, Crystal Palace Campaign.