Thought this was considered bad practice

[NickinMids]

Saw these this morning.. obviously sanctioned by LA. some people might think it would be as well to remove them altogether.. Whats the opinions of the tree boffins on here

[Graham]

Pollarding's ok as an ongoing pruning regime.

[billpierce]

i think i'd rather walk down a street with pollarded trees in than no trees. but only just, and i'd rather be in france!

[Chris at eden]

Pollarding is fine I agree but that isn't Pollarding. Its topping mature trees and as the original post said bad practice. Where is it? You would hope its to mitigate subsidence risk but you never know. Poor species selection for the location also but I suppose it's historic.

[Ian C]

Pollarding's ok as an ongoing pruning regime.

 

Same here.

[Stubby]

Normal street tree pollarding ( heavy topping ) as practiced in many towns . We have some street cherry near me that have a trunk with a girth of a massive tree and not much more than a bush on top and only just above head height before the canopy spreads.

[Simon Rotheram]

We re-pollarded just over 600 Lime and Plane trees in Coventry this year that are on either 3/5 year rotation and have been managed like this for as long as I can remember - I'd done them a number of times before!

[Chris at eden]

I process tpo apps for an LA and it annoys me when I run apps to pollard mature maiden trees. Its not possible. Pollarding does not result in large diameter cuts and does not stress the trees. It also has a well developed framework of branches and starts when trees are young.

 

http://www.kent-treecare.co.uk/wp-content/gallery/pollarding/pollarding.jpg

[MATTMOSS]

Normal street tree pollarding ( heavy topping ) as practiced in many towns . We have some street cherry near me that have a trunk with a girth of a massive tree and not much more than a bush on top and only just above head height before the canopy spreads.

 

Are you sure they are not grafts?

[peatff]

There's an avenue near us that gets done every few years and they look nice when they are getting ready to be done again. They have been in there over a hundred years and a couple have died off but the rest are still going strong. Rather see that than none as above.