Toby Carvery carves up ancient historic oak

[Yamadori]

Well that's it Toby Carvery, you have lost my custom. Permanently. And your toothless apology today has done nothing to make me change my mind. You make me sick.

Destroying one of the most historic, ancient and nationally important protected trees is an utter disgrace, and the fact that the police are saying it's a civil matter is a fucking joke as well.

Agree OP. What they have done is abhorrent. What person in their right mind?!

Totally. Who knows but maybe the tree surgeon just wanted the business. We have them knocking at our door wanting to do work on a couple of our trees. I would like to know about the detailed report that these so say tree experts did saying the tree was dead when it wasn't. And I find it bizarre that the company didn't consult the council when thinking of felling a tree this large and this old.

They are despicable fuckers! As are Spurs and Enfield Council.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/apr/17/felled-enfield-oak-tree-spurs-toby-carvery-london

If you go on to google earth and find the pub car park on street view, you can see the tree and it does look like a bit of a hazard. It’s big and twisty and right next to the car park. I think they must’ve been worried about liability if it fell on someone.

But yeah, it needs to be clear what reports were carried out and when.

I have a 200 year old tree at the end of my garden which has a TPO on it. I get it pruned regularly and an application has to go to the council and they sometimes come and have a look and are really strict - funnily enough the same trees on the pavement are cut back a lot more than they let me ! I don’t understand why this tree wasn’t protected

and one of tree surgeons - there are some amazing ones and some real cowboys

This is terrible, I hope they get punished severely for it. As someone said, even dead oaks support a large variety of life, from fungus and invertebrates, to owls. Living oaks attract at least 250 known invertebrate types.

The only point for optimism here is that essentially, they've pollarded it and not felled it.

I think it’s highly likely that Toby Carvery were worried it may get a TPO put on it as part of the huge campaign from 1000’s of local people who passionately don’t want their natural green spaces and precious ancient woodland sold off to Tottenham Hotspur.

Toby Carvery and someone in Enfield Council stand to make a lot of money from this. SHAME on the lot of them! And SHAME on London’s so called Eco Mayor, Sadiq, who has the power to stop this vandalism but so far, hasn’t done so!

There are details in the link below of how to contact Sadiq and The Secretary of State to object - it would be fantastic if you felt you could object to this too. There’s a template to help draft objections so would only take a minute 💚🌳

https://www.avidbeats.com/guardians-of-whitewebbs

I thought Toby Carvery were only the leaseholders of the site so they don’t have anything to gain financially from its removal. I’d imagine part of their leasehold agreement is to maintain and repair etc including removal of hazards. Had the tree fell on someone or someone’s car then Toby Carvery would have had to foot the bill not the Council

Well, I wouldn't have been removing a 500 year old oak tree without consulting everyone possible about its removal. I imagine this has been done on the quiet for nefarious reasons

Exactly

After all those oaks were felled in Greenwich park to make way for the olympics I don’t have a lot of faith in councils or government tbh

the council should have put a TPO on it but didn’t for some reason

Really? When your insurers and health and safety people are telling you to do the complete opposite?

Not by any stretch of the imagination saying this is ok and it does sound like there might be some nefarious things going on. But as a landowner it’s made pretty clear to us who pays if part of a dead tree falls on someone. We live in such a litigious society now that what’s rights isn’t always what should be done.

I think it's mostly on the head of the dodgy treet surgeons here. A reputable tree surgeon would not have touched that tree. Toby Carvery should never have considered it but they should have been told no. Who is hunting down the dodgy tree surgeons here?

It's like landscape "gardeners" who lay plastic "grass". Criminals, the lot of them.

In this day and age of litigation M&B were probably worried about a claim if the tree injured someone.

It can't have had a TPO on it otherwise it would be a criminal matter.

It's a civil matter because the Council are claiming a breach of the lease.

Very very sad though and perhaps blanket TPOs need to be imposed.

I work in development and what annoys me is that developers will often completely clear a site of non projected trees before they submit planning to make sure they can't be emergency TPOd. If planning isn't successful the tress have still been removed.

A) it wasn’t a protected tree. Now the stump has a preservation order on it but there wasn’t one
b)M&B leased the land and were responsibile for maintaining trees
c) the branches over hung the car park I believe. In accordance with health and safety protocols they engaged the services of qualified tree surgeons. It is a land owner/leader responsibility to ensure trees that overhang are regularly checked. This includes private homes with trees that over hang footpaths etc.
d) the experts advised the tree needing felling.

at this point when you rely on professionals it’s really not surprising that the instruction was given to fell the tree. The tree surgeons seem to be very quiet in all of this. Why did they assert the tree needed to be cut down? If fully qualified professionals state that a large tree with over hanging branches poses a risk as its ill then I can totally understand why the employee gave their permission.

in hindsight a second opinion should have been sought but I still think the expertise of the tree people should be being looked into here.

The tree surgeons could have started and seen it was ok and minimised the cutting. There is no way an average person with no aboricultural training would know. That’s why we employ trained experts

They are disgraceful. What vandals. 500 years.

Yes. A 500 years old tree being felled is emotive. I would cover my arse lol

Nowhere have I read that they consulted all those people

None of that really accounts for the fact the tree wasn’t on their land, only adjacent to it.

Funny that. Considering they are about to make a shit tonne of money selling off the people’s land here…. Wonder why they didn’t….?

Many tree surgeons are butchers who hate trees.

Why don't people get educated about nature in school? Most people are so dumb.

I think to be fair to Toby Carvery they were acting on advice from the expert they employed. It’s a shame no one was more curious about preserving the tree, it’s a shame that such an important tree didn’t have a TPO in place, or that there wasn’t a clause in their lease requiring council discussions/permissions to fell trees. I think the lesson here should be that we need more robust protections in place for ancient trees in the UK.

A company just literally removed a whole tree outside my block, root and all. Wasn't dead. I'd love to know why.

I can’t get too excited about this. I love a nice tree as much as the next person, but there are a lot of people on this little island of ours. And a lot of trees. Sometimes there is a conflict between the safety of people, the successful and safe operation of businesses and the right of trees. I say this as someone who moved into a property last year and has been bedevilled by an enormous oak tree in the garden that backs on to us and the pigeons that crap copiously onto my lawn and patio day and night, to the point we couldn’t even sit in the sun or let the kids play in almost half the garden. We’ve just paid a grand to have the tree massively cut back after agreeing g it with the neighbours. It’s not been taken down, but to be honest, it’s grown out of all proportion to the residential street we live in. The houses are over 100 years old, whoever first planted it will be long gone but it causes issues in three different gardens now. The owners don’t want to take it down because they value the nature it attracts and it is a beautiful tree, but they barely use their garden at all as a result in the summer. I don’t think it’s always straightforward.