Toby Carvery owner urged to fund ‘life support’ for felled Enfield oak

The restaurant chain Toby Carvery is being urged to pay for life support for an ancient oak tree that its owner had chainsawed last spring to widespread public dismay.

Experts say the trunk of the 500-year-old tree, on the edge of a Toby Carvery car park in Whitewebbs Park, Enfield, has shown signs of regrowth, despite its branches being sawn off by the restaurant’s contractors in April.

The unauthorised felling is now the subject of an investigation by the Forestry Commission. It also the centre of a legal dispute between Mitchells & Butlers Retail, the company that runs Toby Carvery, and Enfield council, the landowner, which was not consulted on the works to the tree, prompting outrage from its leader.

In the meantime, Toby Carvery is under pressure to help make amends by funding a scheme to try to regenerate the stump.

Russell Miller, an arborist who specialises in ancient trees, says the remains of the oak could be put on a form of “life support” relatively cheaply. Such a system helped preserve the oldest tree in Poland, he said.

Miller said the Toby Carvery oak was “alive, and it’s re-sprouting – the issue is whether those sprouts will die off, either because they just dry up or in the medium term they don’t have enough photosynthetic capability to generate enough energy to sustain the root system”.

He added: “The way to influence that would be to put a sprinkler system on it that would reduce the risk of individual shoot failure and system failure. It would require a tank in the Toby Carvery car park, and sprinklers with a pump. It would only cost about £10,000 and a bit of project management.”

Adam Cormack, the head of campaigning at the Woodland Trust, said: “Ancient trees like the Whitewebbs oak are irreplaceable. It’s vital every effort is made to keep what’s left alive so it can continue to help wildlife thrive and inspire and educate future generations.

“We would hope Toby Carvey will do all they can to ensure this magnificent tree has the best chance of survival.”

Cormack accepted that the chances of the oak’s regeneration were unclear. “This type of work is highly experimental, but we should be trying everything to secure a future for this remarkable tree,” he said.

“In 200 years, we want a family to be able to walk past, point at the marks on its trunk and tell the story of when the Whitewebbs oak nearly died. We must act now to try to preserve its remains.”

He added that the Forestry Commission investigation “should shed more light on this troubling incident”.

In the aftermath of the felling, Mitchells & Butlers Retail suggested the tree had died. It said it had been advised by contractors that the tree needed felling for safety reasons.

The company declined to comment on the call to fund attempts to keep the tree alive.