Oscar-winning actress Dame Judi Dench has a new role - that of an anti-development campaigner. The particular scheme that provoked her ire is a proposal to build 300 new apartments on the derelict site of the former London Chest Hospital in Bethnal Green, east London.

Her objections - and those of many others - focus on the potential harm the development will cause to a mulberry tree believed to be more than 400 years old. Dench is the figurehead of a campaign group trying to raise £15,000 to launch a legal challenge to Tower Hamlets’ decision to grant planning permission. A petition to save the tree has so far attracted more than 16,000 signatures.

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