If you have been down to the woods today you won’t have seen the bears having a picnic, you’ll have seen that big areas of Palewell Common wood have been laid bare. There are piles of felled trees lying on their sides, dry and stacked.

If you are anything like me, you’ll have been shocked to see this violation of nature. Call me an old-fashioned romantic but for the past 22 years, since moving here, I’ve taken a daily walk through our woods, revelling in the secrecy and mystery of a woodland on our doorstep. It’s much reduced now and for me, it’s become painful to see. It used to mean so much to me and to many others, I’m sure. Taking the central path towards Richmond Park, I couldn’t see, on either side of me, where the wood ended and I could pretend to myself that it stretched on indefinitely.

Like so many local resdients I was sensitive to the privilege of living in London but able to walk in a place where no buildings or streets were visible around me. I’d gaze through thick greenery and watch bluetits and robins fly up to branches and squirrels scurry into thickets, secure in the knowledge that they could hide from me there.

No more. One side of that central path is significantly felled now, the wall where it ends is in clear view and so are the houses that back onto it. Its privacy has been laid bare. The landscape has been altered, reminding me and perhaps you, of how easy it is to feel powerless and bewildered that in a big area now, 80 years of woodland can quickly be exposed, lying dead on the ground.

This ‘biodiversity’ project is managed by Richmond Council. When the work of cutting started, I observed small notices appearing. They talked about allowing light, to encourage flora and fauna and a wider variety of vegetation to grow.

Attending a Friends of Palewell Common meeting last week, I learned that the council has designated this big area of felled woodland to be reshaped into a ‘glade’. It will only remain a glade if it is permanently suppressed. Nature left to its own devices would trigger ‘succession’ until trees once again reclaimed the space.

To keep it an open glade, the council’s contractors will implement continuous intervention to prevent any new tree saplings growing, in areas where “it has been decided” to keep it clear. In short, this isn’t a temporary clearing; it is a permanent reduction of East Sheen’s local tree canopy. It’s a major clearance and change of the landscape.

My main point in writing this, is to see what is possible now that this work has reached the point that it has. Speaking for myself and several other local residents I’ve talked to, I would like to see our woodland allowed to recover and regrow, in its own natural way. I would like Nature, in its own wisdom, to regenerate.

If more reason was needed, we are all aware of the threat of climate change, largely caused by deforestation. In alarmingly soaring temperatures, surely we need to plant trees, not cut them down. In the big picture, loss of trees is releasing massive amounts of stored carbon into the atmosphere. It severely disrupts global rainfall patterns and regional temperatures.

Contributed by Rebecca Miller

EastSheenMatters comments: Meanwhile Community Bluescapes operating primarily in Barnes, a DEFRA funded partnership of the Council, Barnes Common Limited and WWT held a most informative ‘Fair’ at OSO Arts Centre on Saturday (see post on 3 June 2026) to inform local residents about their plans to improve flooding resilience in the area. (More to follow on the Vine Road Recreation Ground Project.)