Fruit trees can save us from hitting the iceberg

Someone recently wrote a letter to the Camden New Journal saying that trees were crucial in terms of mitigating air pollution and encouraging biodiversity. That's absolutely right. But I would go further. Trees also extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere thereby helping to reduce the greenhouse effect. And they can be a valuable source of food, which will become increasingly important after world oil production peaks and fossil fuel-powered supply chains become increasingly fragile.

Peak Oil is predicted to hit in the next 5-10 years. It will mean dramatic energy price rises which will make last summer – when the price of oil hit $147 a barrel - look like a picnic. That’s why we need to produce more food locally – and fruit and nut trees are part of the solution.

A senior politician in Camden recently told me she wouldn’t want her children eating fruit or vegetables grown in London’s pollution. But what is the difference between eating fruit that has been grown in London and fruit that has been grown in conventional chemical using chemical pesticides and fertilisers. It's time to reread the seminal text on this: “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson.

Two years ago I tried to persuade council officers to allow fruit trees to be planted whenever a tree had to be replaced. Not possible came the reply – it’s a health and safety issue. Fruit might fall in the streets, people might slip, children might climb trees and fall out, the council would be sued, youths might use the fruit as missiles and anyway the trees would be destroyed by vandals. What a depressing world some people inhabit.

If falling fruit is such a problem, then instead of condemning us to fragile, fossil fuel-powered supply chains that are destroying our chances of making it through to the end of this century, why not enter into discussions with groups like Transition Belsize who would be more than happy to organise fruit picking sessions at the first sign of ripeness and then either distribute the fruit to local schools or turn it into jams or chutneys for sale in the local shops. Andrew Thornton, the owner of the Budgens franchise in Belsize Park, has already agreed to do just this.

Some of you will have noticed trees being planted recently around the water feature outside the Swiss Cottage Leisure Centre. What a perfect place for fruit trees, I thought. “Sorry councillor," they told me, "it's health and safety.” Changing council policy is like turning an ocean liner. I’m always standing on the back of my deckchair trying to work out whether we'll turn the ship before we hit the proverbial iceberg. But perhaps the ship is turning on fruit trees. Since July Camden has a policy of encouraging food growing all over the borough and putting in fruit trees where appropriate.

That word “appropriate” is still a bit of a problem as far as I'm concerned. But we are due to get some fruit trees from the council on the Fellows Road estate in Belsize. And a Trees Officer in the Planning Dept last week agreed to try to persuade a householder to put in a walnut tree as a replacement for a tree whose roots had been accidentally destroyed by contractors.

In my world – Belsize in 10 years time – food is being grown on every window sill, every balcony (see the photo below of my balcony last summer), in every front garden and on every scrap of unused land. And fruit and nut trees are everywhere. And yes, children do climb them. And they eat the apples. And they are healthier. And they have more fun.

We have got to starting rethinking the way we live. Before the ship sinks.