Just north of Broken Head Hall, it seems as though some 40 trees have already been earmarked for removal by the road builders within Council… again. As concerned residents have learnt from the past, some numbers have been painted on targeted trunks as the first stage of assessment.
Some of the trees are huge and ecologically significant blackbutt and tallowood and are often many metres from the road edge.
During the life of the last council, I addressed councillors on the exact same issue for a stretch of road a bit further north. After a number of significant trees were cut down, work was stopped and councillors subsequently voted to upgrade the road without destroying further trees. That stretch of road has since been upgraded with no further unnecessary loss of trees.
The councillors of the time, and the wider community in general, were unaware of what was being advanced by certain council staff. This was a complete lack of consultation with the elected body and the local community. Is this happening again?
There is no doubt that roadworks need to be done in this area. Do so many trees need to go for it to happen? I don’t think so and the proof is the recent roadworks done a few hundred metres to the north.
Council can save a substantial amount of money on ecological assessments of all these trees by just leaving the trees alone.
The money saved would be better spent elsewhere in the Shire. I hope that the mayor and councillors will look into this matter as a matter of urgency and find a similar commonsense solution as happened in the past.
Mark McDermid, Broken Head
