PM sent 550-year-old 'Darwin Oak' tree petition

Rob McBride, who started the petition, was accompanied by a group of people at Downing Street on Monday

Campaigners behind a bid to save from being felled a 550-year-old tree, dubbed the "Darwin Oak", have sent a petition to Downing Street.

The tree is situated just down the road in Shropshire, where Charles Darwin was born, in 1809 in Mount House, Shrewsbury.

Now however, it stands on the proposed route of the North West Relief Road, which aims to relieve congestion in the town.

"It's our kids' future, the planet, the climate emergency we’re in," said Rob McBride, who started the petition, as Shropshire Council pledged to plant 84 saplings to replace nine ancient oaks earmarked for felling.

'Tree fights climate change'

Mr McBride said people from 132 countries had signed the petition, which has racked up nearly 110,000 signatures, topping the 100,000 requirement to trigger a parliamentary debate.

"We can't just go willy nilly taking out large, open canopy trees that sequester the carbon," he told BBC Radio Shropshire.

"We need every soldier tree… in the fight against climate change."

Mr McBride - who took the petition to Downing Street - was in a group that included Jack Taylor, of Woodland Trust, which has put the oak on his shortlist for tree of the year, and county MPs Julia Buckley and Helen Morgan.

More than 108,000 people signed the petition to save the Darwin Oak

Mr McBride said Darwin had spent extensive periods of time walking around the area where the tree is, cataloguing species.

"It’s not much of a stretch of the imagination to say that he most probably sat down and sheltered under its majestic boughs," he said.

However, the council has said there is no evidence to link the man behind the theory of evolution by natural selection, and the oak.

'Nature's cathedrals'

Plans for the relief road, which will take traffic out of Shrewsbury town centre, were conditionally approved by county councillors in October.

Other trees that face being felled include six oaks, an ash, and a field maple.

But, Mr McBride said the "Darwin Oak", "won’t be chopped down, we won’t let them".

Mr Taylor said trees like this one are "nature's cathedrals".

"Planting 84 saplings to replace the irreplaceable value that these trees have is laughable, it’s not up to scratch," he argued.