Would I be unreasonable to cut down this tree? Diagram included.

[TigerOnTour]

I'm at my wits end with my garden. The lawn dies every winter. For the last 2 years we had the turf replaced but this is unsustainable so this year I'm trying to re seed it. I think cutting down a tree (T1 on diagram) would be very helpful in letting more light in. I would just pollard it rather than cut the whole thing down.

T1 is a 5-6m high olive tree and is always in leaf because that's what olive trees do.
T2, 3 and 4 are 3m tall Japanese maples of varying colours in the autumn. They are lovely but I feel like all 4 trees being planted at 1m intervals rather crowds the garden.
Ts5 and 6 are not a problem and the neighbours also have trees behind there so removing them wouldn't help much.

However, cutting trees down is sad for the world. Aibu to pollard T1?

How much foot traffic does the lawn get in the winter months, do people cross it to get from one patio to the other without using the path, or does it get played on a lot?

Is there a lot of moss on it?

Do the patios slope towards the grass so that rainfall drains into the lawn area?

When I lived somewhere grass wouldn't grow, I planted a 'lawn' made from lippia/phyla nodiflora to make a green surface. It's indestructible, you can literally drive cars over it and it just grows tighter and nicer. It can survive bog conditions and total drought. It does lose it's leaves if you get very hard frosts, but comes back in spring. You don't need to mow it, just trample it and it stays tight, but you can cut it (maybe once or twice a year) if it grows straggly. Might be worth a try.

It’s more likely your lawn is failing due to lack of drainage. Removing trees will only make this worse. We have a similar issue in our garden but the lawned areas always look much better come spring and summer. Hope yours comes good then too.

The drainage is an issue, I've tried to put in a drainpipe to take most of it away but it's all patio and I can't dig it up. It does in the area closest to the olive tree first though, not where the water runs off the big patio.

It doesn't get much winter use, although there was a bit of football this weekend ⚽