STOKE POGES TASK FORCE
200 trees need someone on their side - YOU!
Adopt one. It's free. It's symbolic. And you'll get to know exactly which tree is yours.
Almost 200 trees within WWFC's proposed Academy area have now been carefully and non-invasively identified, measured and individually numbered — and we haven't finished yet.
Now we're asking the community to adopt them.
Why these trees?
The red line on WWFC's own golf-course map shows the proposed Academy boundary.
We have used this boundary to identify the trees within and immediately around the proposed development area.
The vast majority would have to disappear to make way for football pitches, buildings and infrastructure.
By comparison, it would feel like a football desert. Nothing against football as such — but not here.
A tree planted is not a mature tree replaced
Some of the oaks we measured have trunk girths exceeding 3 and even 4 metres. Trees like these have taken generations to develop. They cannot simply be replaced like for like.
Compensatory planting has its place, but a sapling is not a replacement for a mature tree. It may become one decades from now, when today's actors are long gone — provided it survives and is protected throughout that time.
Where a mature tree can be saved, saving it is better than destroying it and promising to grow another one.
We're also seeking legal protection
An application has been made for an Area Tree Preservation Order (TPO) covering the affected area.
The adoption scheme cannot itself protect a tree in law. What it can demonstrate is something equally important: these trees are known, measured and valued by the community.