November 29

Walking down Hernrietta Place off Regent St. this morning, “The Writer” and I were surprised to see a tree advancing towards us on the pavement After we had made and laughed at our own jokes about seeing that Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane, and having ascertained that it was actually being transported by a digger, we rounded the corner into Regent St. thinking no more about it.

It was then we noticed more trees being carried by diggers and inserted into large oddly-shaped planters.

Being incurably nosy, and spotting that the man on the right of this picture, aside from trying to eat a sandwich, was also giving instructions, I crossed the road to find out what was happening.

He told me that trees are being planted the length of Regent St. by The Crown Estate “as a response to Covid -19” They are an 18-month experiment in helping to improve air quality and boost biodiversity. Each planter will be filled with flowers, seating will be built in and, eventually, there will be artwork on the pavement around each tree.

The man with the sandwich turned out to be Chris Stanton, designer of the whole project.

He told me he was having the most exciting day, seeing the trees planted and his project come to fruition.

“There will be different kinds of trees and at the end of the experiment, Londoners will be asked what they think about the scheme, which trees they prefer and so on”.

This is how it will look when it’s finished.

The pavements have already been widened so there is only one lane in each direction. Not sure how drivers are coping with this. It’s eight months since “The Writer” and I have been in any form of transport so I haven’t had the chance to hear bus passengers or taxi drivers complaining and there’s hardly any traffic at the moment so it would be hard to tell the effect..

Anyway, I think the scheme looks extremely attractive and welcome it. I can’t help thinking, though, about the response to Rory Stewart, when he suggested exactly this when he was standing as Mayor of London in January.

“Rory Stewart prompts backlash after suggesting Regent Street should be lined with trees to tackle climate change” bellowed The Evening Standard

“Backlash” was over-egging it a bit as it seems to have been a Twitter storm (Actually, not even a storm, more of a shower) mainly from people complaining that “trees would spoil the sweeping view that Nash had designed” and that the street is “an elegant and uplifting architectural achievement just as it is”.

Let’s see if they change their minds.

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It has turned out to be a day of trees. On arriving home, “The Writer”, having “appeared” by Zoom at the recent Mumbai Literature Festival, received an emailed certificate announcing that each writer who contributed to the festival has had a tree planted in his or her name and that, as one of them, he had been “honoured with. bountiful tree”.

Lovely idea.