Greece has been honored at the
European Heritage Awards 2021, the EU intiative for cultural heritage organized by the European Commission and Europa Nostra, for the restoration project of the landmark
Plaka Bridge in Epirus.
The Plaka Bridge is a single arched stone-bridge, the largest and most impressive of its kind in Epirus. In February 2015, during a heavy storm that caused the river to overflow, a significant part of the main arch and the east pier of the bridge collapsed.
The Plaka Bridge after its collapse. Photo Source: Ministry of Culture – copyright Athens Macedonia News Agency / STR
The project has restored the bridge to its former beauty and underlined its considerable value to both the tangible and intangible values of the natural landscape in which it is found.
The oldest tree in the East End is a black mulberry in Bethnal Green. Since 2017, it has also been the subject of furious dispute. The developers Crest Nicholson want to move it out of the way of a planned block of luxury flats, just 35 per cent of them ‘affordable’. After three years of campaigning, and an online petition garnering more than 16,000 signatures, local residents have secured it a temporary stay of execution (the campaigners argue that relocating the tree, as Crest Nicholson and Tower Hamlets Council have agreed to do, will likely kill it). In January, the High Court ordered a judicial review of the proposals (scheduled for 4–5 May). The Bethnal Green tree is not the only mulberry in London under threat. Six miles away, residents of the Park View Estate in Islington are beginning their own similar challenge, to developers’ proposals to fell a 70-year-old tree from which they still make annual mulberry jam.