I TRUST Kendalians are prepared for the imminent devastation along our town's river banks, mentioning in particular the Aynam Road stretch where ALL the trees are to be felled, mature and lovely chestnuts,

willows, birches and others.

Instead there is to be a wall - a nice one we are assured, with some glass panels to glimpse the river through, and some planting of new trees.

We are all supposed to know and accept this by now but I'm surprised at the lack of comment in these pages, given that this part of the flood defences project will have such a traumatic effect on the town visually and environmentally. Everyone surely sympathises greatly with those affected by flooding and accepts the need for action but it cannot be denied that the whole town is paying a huge price to protect relatively few properties.

Surely we are clever enough to find better ways of doing this - it comes down to what level of priority is given to preserving trees and the natural environment.

We are declared to be in a climate emergency with only a few years left to even start to hope to get ourselves out of the shameful mess we have made of our planet - if Kendal's mass tree felling is an example of the

best we can do, I would say there isn't much hope for us on the larger scale.

Celia Junor

Kendal