Trees in South Hill Park

​​​Request 711318903​

Regarding the plans to "regenerate" South Hill Park (revealed at a meeting of the Havre Des Pas Improvement Group on 4th May 2022 by Ollie Brewster, an officer at the Infrastructure, Housing and Environment Department where he mentioned "removing some of the trees which have grown too large and are blocking views and depriving plants of light"), please supply the following:

1

How many trees existed in South Hill Park at the start of May 2022?

2

How many trees existed in South Hill Park immediately before Storm Ciaran hit the island on 1st/2nd November 2023?

3

How many trees exist in South Hill Park in May 2025?

4

How many new trees have been re-planted in South Hill Park to replace those lost during Storm Ciaran on 1st/2nd November 2023?

If necessary, use sources such as the Jersey Tree Map but please include actual total numbers of trees on those 3 dates rather than just visual maps without actual numbers. If statistics are not available for specific dates then include statistics for dates that are available which are close to the dates requested, e.g. if there are no statistics for the start of May 2022 then an alternative date in early 2022 would be acceptable.

Response

1, 2 and 3

The most recent tree survey for the whole of the South Hill/Mount Bingham area was carried out in 2015, which included South Hill Park, however, the tree count was not split per the South Hill Park area.

Therefore, the Scheduled Public Authority does not hold the requested information for May 2022, November 2023 and May 2025 and Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 applies.

4

The Scheduled Public Authority have not re-planted any trees in the requested area since Storm Ciaran.

Article applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.​

Internal Review Request

I request an internal review of your response (27th May) to my Freedom of Information request dated 2nd  May.

Your response fails to provide any statistics at all on the number of trees in South Hill Park that I requested at 3 specific times, namely the start of May 2022; "immediately before Storm Ciaran hit the island on 1st/2nd November 2023" and finally at the time when the request was lodged in May 2025.

The only part of the request that has been answered is part 4, which confirms what most residents of the area already know - that no trees have been re-planted in the park since Storm Ciaran.

In deciding to ask for an internal review of this response, I took into consideration the response I received to an earlier request you sent me in December 2023 (Ref. No. 556872923). Not only was that response delayed well beyond the statutory time limit for no good reason but it cited Article 16 (excessive cost) as a reason not to provide me with any of the information I asked for. Although this earlier request did not ask for statistics on the number of trees in South Hill Park, it is linked to my latest request because I was seeking to gain further information on plans that were revealed by a civil servant at a meeting of the Havre Des Pas Improvement Group on 4th May 2022. Not only did the plans reveal the possibility of locating a skate park to the area currently occupied by the learner driver's reversing bags (not reported by any media despite an election campaign taking place about that time period), but they also included "removing some of the trees which have grown too large and are blocking views and depriving plants of light".

The plan to remove trees during an acknowledged climate emergency purely because they had "grown too large" is not only astonishing but must have needed the implied or express consent of a Minister of Assistant Minister and the Constable of St Helier. The contempt with which you treated both my first and second requests is appalling. Who decided that they were too large? What views were they blocking and was it nearby residents who asked for the trees to be cut down or was somebody considering the potential effect on residents of the future high rise development on the Planning Dept. site which is now under way? How many trees were subsequently cut down before Storm Ciaran conveniently finished the job? It is inconceivable that officers carrying out this secret deforestation plan would not not have at least attempted to obtain up-to-date advice and statistics on the number of trees in the Park. 

At this point I bring to your attention the existence of a Jersey Tree Map which appears to have been gathering data on the location of trees in South Hill Park during the time period covered by my request for the number of trees. I remind you that I specifically referred to this source of information in the 2nd paragraph of Part 4. I said: "If necessary, use sources such as the Jersey Tree Map..." Yet your response makes no reference at all to this map. Why? It must be possible to extract data from the various snapshots of the Jersey Tree Map which would either reveal the exact number of trees that have been lost over a given time period of at the very least provide an impression of how many trees have been lost.

In conclusion, the information I asked for in this latest request is in the overwhelming public interest because it seeks to uncover the facts and consequences behind a secret Government policy to partly deforest one of St Helier's last remaining natural habitats without any public consultation. The various political personalities behind this policy have so far managed to evade any critical public scrutiny and many of them will be standing for re-election again next year. I say they have no right to keep their roles in this policy a secret from the public any longer.

Internal Review Response

This internal review has been conducted by an official of appropriate seniority who has not been involved in the original decision. As part of their review, they will be expected to understand the reasons behind the original response, impartially determine whether the response should be revised, and how so, considering the request and the information held, any relevant exemptions, or other relevant matters under the Law.  

The Internal Review Panel was asked to review the original response and confirm the following: 

Does the FOI request relate to a body to which the Law applies, or information held by a body covered by the Law?  

If the answer is no, all the other questions are not applicable.   

Further questions if above is a yes:   

i. Was the right information searched for and reviewed? 

ii. Was the information supplied appropriately?

iii. Was information appropriately withheld in accordance with the articles applied and were the public interest test/ prejudice test properly applied?

Following discussion, it was agreed by the Panel that the decision be upheld.