Holocaust Memorial Bill

Lord Robathan Excerpts

Committee stage
Thursday 20th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

My Lords, the amendment in my name adds a third condition to Amendment 9, moved by the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I should perhaps explain why I think this is so important. I start from the view that this little park, which has been protected hitherto by an Act of Parliament, remains very valuable and should not be tampered with to its great detriment.

I will not rehearse here the arguments so eloquently put forward by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and the noble Lord, Lord Russell. I simply want to put on record that I heartily endorse what they have both said—they make a great deal of sense. I will not inflict on the Committee a repetition of those arguments, save in one regard. I find it very distasteful that the Government who want to go ahead with this—which I believe will damage the park—at the same time issued that Statement back in July 2024, explaining that they wanted every person to be within 15 minutes of a green or blue space. There seems to be something of a contradiction here, or, as the old adage has it, “Fine words butter no parsnips”.

I want to demonstrate the significant damage that I think will be done to the trees in the park. Currently, there is a magnificent avenue of no fewer than 51 London planes, which are mature, very fine and well looked after by Royal Parks, together with several smaller ornamental trees. They provide a wonderful setting for a world heritage site, which also has special protection in planning law. I am not going to act on my own authority in this; I will draw heavily on a report in the public domain, commissioned by Westminster City Council to advise it after the decision had been taken out of its hands and in preparation for the other details that were to follow. It used as an expert witness a gentleman called Mark Mackworth-Praed, a chartered agriculturalist and a member of the Expert Witness Institute working for Archer Associates, a major tree and ecology consultancy. I should now like to draw attention—

[Lord Robathan (Con)]

I am grateful to my noble friend for giving way. She is talking about the value of this green space, which I think everybody now agrees on. Is she aware that it is the only green space that marches next to the river without a road in between for something like seven miles on the north bank of the river?

[Baroness Fookes (Con)]

I was seeking to curtail my remarks in the interests of brevity. I notice that a little bit has been taken out of my time now, unless I go over the allotted amount.

I draw the attention of the Committee to British Standard 5837. I do not expect noble Lords to be immediately thrilled by this announcement, but it is a widely used and accepted measure of the viability of a tree by assessing the minimum area around it deemed sufficient to contain sufficient roots to enable it to live and survive well. It is a calculation of a circle with a radius 12 times the diameter of the tree’s trunk. When you look at the smallness of this park and the number of trees, it does not take a mathematical genius to work out that, somewhere, roots will be damaged.

Let me give specific examples from this independently produced report. First, it is reckoned that digging out the enormous amount of soil to provide the underground learning centre will cause 11 trees to have their roots severed on the western boundary within the amount of the British Standard, so they would be damaged. The Spicer Memorial, already referred to in another amendment, and possibly replacing a refreshment kiosk would risk real damage to three trees. Then there is the creation of two service routes carrying various underground utilities and drainage runs: it is reckoned that 10 trees there would be affected adversely, either directly or in conjunction with other hazards. That seems to me a pretty worrying description of what might happen, particularly bearing in mind that when you have avenues of trees, the loss of even one tree can shatter the visual image. If there are several, we might have an even worse result, but that is not the only damage to trees that can be caused by the direct severing of roots.

Another real worry is that soil compaction can have a major impact on the health of trees. I am sure those of us who are amateur gardeners will have been told about not walking on wet beds, because of the possible danger to plants, which will be damaged by compaction. As I understand it, the proposal is for the formation of a slope up to the fins of the memorial, which would involve a lot of soil being sited on top of the existing level. That would have the effect of asphyxiating the soil; in other words, it cannot breathe. Worse than that, soil compaction during works with heavy machinery would also have a very damaging effect, to say nothing of digging out all the soil to form the underground learning centre. One can see that moving great piles of soil will, in itself, cause considerable damage.

On top of that, we have all the building works that will be associated with carrying out the work of producing the memorial and the underground space for the learning centre. Storing heavy materials also compacts the soil and heavy machinery running over it has the same effect, so over time this would have a major, damaging effect on the park as a whole. I know that the Minister has referred to enhancing the value of the park, but I fear that in practice it will be greatly damaged.

Finally, when all this is done—at some unspecified period in the future—there will be much heavier footfall if it is all successful and thousands of people are coming in, rather than the people who use the park now. Through footfall, they too can have a tremendous impact on the soil and its compaction. I do not see a happy future for these trees in the circumstances I have described.

I conclude by referring to the views of Westminster City Council’s sub-committee. As we all know, it was not allowed to make the decision but it resolved that, had it come to that committee, it would on various grounds have refused the application. I want to deal with only one that relates to trees. It said:

“Inadequate and conflicting information has been submitted which is not sufficient to permit a proper assessment of the impact of the proposed development on trees within Victoria Tower Gardens, together with the effectiveness of suggested mitigation. As such it has not been satisfactorily demonstrated that unacceptable harm to, and/or loss of, trees would not arise as a result of the proposed development”.


Finally, the sub-committee said that

“damage and/or loss to trees would be detrimental to the visual amenities of the area, and would have a further adverse effect on the significance of heritage assets”.

I think we all know about the importance of this little park as a backdrop for the Houses of Parliament and the abbey. On that basis, I beg to move.