An “avenue of beautiful old trees” is the latest casualty of the power lines protection program being carried out in Sutherland Shire.
About 20 trees have been cut down in the last two days in Waratah Street, Sutherland, as part of the program being conducted by Ausgrid and Sutherland Shire Council.
The upper branches, trunks and foliage were cut first, leaving trunk remnants two to three metres high, which will be removed later.
Wendy Lovell, a local resident for 29 years, said, “the change is stark and deeply saddening for the community”.
“Tree removal in Sutherland Shire has become too common,” she said.
“Almost every tree on the northern side of Waratah Street from Belmont Street to Oak Rd, as well as many on the southern side were marked for removal.
“Surely the avenue of beautiful old trees should have been preserved, and Ausgrid considered the option of putting wires underground?
“We understand the council’s commitment to public safety, but strongly feel the implementation of a prudent tree management plan over the past decade would have immensely lessened the atrocious result of the current actions.
“It will be a long time before there is shade for pedestrians, privacy for homes, and the habitat loss for local wildlife will never be fully restored.
“This action is without proper community consultation and will change our environment irrevocably.”
Ms Lovell said the council told her more replacement trees would be planted than the number removed, but that would not start until next year, they would be smaller and the canopy will be less.
It would be 10 years before they were of mature height, she said.
Ms Lovell expressed her “outrage and sadness” to the council.
“They were willing to talk to me about it, but nothing was going to change,” she said.
“The council said, because of the way pruning had been conducted over many years, the trees were not in good health and were unstable.
”They said the trees were from Tenterfield and were expected to grow 12 metres high, but grew to 25 metres because of the Sutherland Shire environment.
“My frustration is that this is not a problem that was discovered last week,” she said.
”They could have planned it out and had a much better outcome for everyone.”
The Ausgrid-council program, targeting large trees with poor structure under power lines, is being carried out in seven major streets in the shire.
“To compensate for the removal of the trees, we will undertake a planting program with suitable species during September and October,” an earlier council statement said.
Other streets included in the program include Taren Point Road, The Boulevarde and Garnet Road, Kirrawee, Bellingara Road, Miranda, Kareena Road, Caringbah and Port Hacking Road, Sylvania.
