A consultation on whether to chop down three toxic Plymouth city centre trees is coming to an end – as it emerges there have been no incidents of children being poisoned by laburnums in the city in the past decade.
Plymouth City Council has been seeking comments on what to do about the laburnum trees bordering the under-construction play area in Armada Way.
It said they may need to be removed as the trees – particularly their seeds and pods – are poisonous.
The laburnums are already recommended for removal due to their poor condition but as part of risk reviews the toxic nature of trees so near the playground led council officers to recommend removing the laburnums to prevent the risk of children eating the seeds.
The seeds, which look like peas, can cause vomiting, convulsive movements, slight frothing at the mouth and diarrhoea.
The trees had been earmarked for felling under the original Armada Way upgrade scheme, which saw 110 trees chopped down in 2023, but were granted a reprieve after the newly-elected Labour administration revoked the old scheme later that year and pledged no more trees would be lost.
The council is now considering whether to keep the laburnums but monitor potential “ingestion” events, prune them, move them somewhere else, or get rid of them and plant some other trees nearby.
The consultation ends on February 20 and can be found at: https://www.plymouth.gov.uk/tree-removal
However, a Freedom of Information Act request, from a member of the public, found that no children have been poisoned by laburnum trees in Plymouth in the past 10 years.
The person asked the council for the information about recorded incidents of poisoning, reports mentioning laburnum poisoning, or giving it as a reason for tree removal – and there were none.
The council, in its reply, said that its street services and health and safety teams had no records of children being poisoned by laburnum trees and its public health team said: “We have not been made aware of any locally occurring clinical cases of laburnum poisoning in children.”
The group Plymouth Tree People (PTP) has told the council it does not support any removal of the Armada Way laburnums.
In its response to the consultation, PTP said: “We do not believe it has been adequately evidenced that the trees pose a significant risk to public safety sufficient to warrant their removal.”
It called for a fresh risk assessment by an independent expert and called for the council to publish “evidence” and “a clear explanation of why it considers the risk presented by these trees to be materially greater than that posed by other common urban trees and planting – some of which are recent and similarly close to the new playground”.
The PTP statement said: “These trees provide significant seasonal interest in spring, with a striking display of yellow flowers. We consider it important – particularly for children – that the public realm reflects the natural variety of living systems.
“Trees can deliver amenity and ecological value even where their appearance does not meet an idealised standard of uniformity. We consider that natural variation is itself a public benefit and should not be treated as a reason for removal.”
A spokesperson for Save the Trees of Armada Way (Straw) said: “There seems to be very little on whether they (the laburnums) pose any greater threat than many other common plants, which are toxic, like cherry laurel which I have seen planted around a school playground.
“Do children really eat laburnum seeds, and if they do, do they do it in sufficient quantities that they get sick? Once the area is planted up with what they refer to as ‘dense underplanting’, will children even be able to get to the seed pods on the trees?
“And at the point where the seeds come away from the pods they are black and hard. Even if left entirely unattended, do kids usually eat handfuls of hard, black seeds off the floor? Are there articles or reports on this?”
Cllr Mark Lowry, cabinet member for finance and city centre champion, has acknowledged that the trees have caused “no recorded harm to date” , but said more children are expected to use the new play area.
As part of the £30m Armada Way rebuild, a raised planter, which is currently home to the laburnums, will be densely planted with low ground cover under the remaining trees, with 1,998 specimens of shade-tolerant ferns and wood rush.
At the margin of the raised bed, about 500 flowering perennials will be planted.
The council said that while its officers have a preferred option, to remove the trees, this is not an absolute given, and the authority is keen to be transparent about how decisions are made.
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