Hawthorn hedges on estates

Margaret Buckley

My thesis is that the planting of hawthorn hedges would foster social harmony, in particular on large housing estates, to the benefit of large numbers of people.

'The planting of hawthorn hedges would foster social harmony'

Testing out my thesis, I wrote to Mr James Beardall, Parks Superintendent of Shrewsbury and Atcham Borough Council, to point out an area bordering a large council estate which I felt merited the treatment. He replied that it was a good idea which he would take up in the next planting season. He has done so and the hawthorn slips have caught! I have every hope that in a very few years they will add to the safety and amenity of an ugly route, crossing a dangerous stream, in my area.

Experts approaching the problem of vandalism from many different perspectives agree that tangible, easily recognisable boundaries provide physical and emotional security. The younger, more vulnerable or more disturbed the population, the greater the need for such security. Small children will panic in large, unfeatured areas; older children will vandalise what Alice Coleman calls 'confused space'. Territorial boundaries are felt to be so important to adults that families will bring law suits and nations will fight wars to establish or extend them; the parallels with the need for internal, psychological boundaries and constraints are obvious.

I advance the following thoughts in support of my contention:

'Hawthorn 'slips' are very easily obtainable. They grow well and require very little maintenance'

(1) Hawthorn 'slips' are very easily obtainable. They grow well and require very little maintenance; (2) They increase in effectiveness over time, rather than depreciating, and are cost-effective; (3) They are indigenous to all parts of the British Isles, providing beauty of sight and scent particularly in early summer; (4) They are 'home' to many varieties of songbird and small mammal; (5) Compared with the unlovely concrete pillars and barbed wire, which invite attack, they are more neutrally, perhaps even positively, enclosing; (6) They are effectively child- and vandal-proof; (7) They provide some degree of baffle on the verges of noisy roads; (8) They require no great capital outlay nor sophisticated technology and there would probably be direct and indirect savings to the budgets of those local authorities which planted them; (9) They would, if they were planted, protected and replaced with sufficient determination, induce low-level contentment; (10) Play areas would become pleasanter.

The solution is not 'instant' and would only suit selected sites; it would not appeal to those who believe that the proper response to physical aggression towards property is an escalated counter attack. It should, however, appeal to schools, parents, conservationists, budget-conscious councils, local residents, playscheme leaders and motorists.

Margaret Buckley, the Old School House, Vicarage Road, Meole Brace, Shrewsbury, SY3 9EZ (tel 0743 352076). Her idea was highly commended in the Social Inventions Awards.

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