The tree officer from the council came this morning, and a leading local cabinet member, to attend a debate in my front garden about the wilful destruction of the trees in my street by council contractors a few years ago. Both very nice chaps, and in no way responsible for the topping of the mature beech trees which characterised this quiet corner of our town which happened in a previous administration. I’m still angry, as are others, about the destruction of these trees four years after the event, which took place, in my opinion, because a fellow resident of our street didn’t like leaves falling in his garden and incidentally was friendly with a local councillor. If you see a van full of ‘tree surgeons’ with ‘Agent Orange Tree Destruction Services’ stencilled on the side, it’s probably the same idiots who removed the nesting habitats of a good number of local birds and a great many beetles, whilst gleefully destroying the amenity of my street with their chainsaws in the process.
Maybe there’ll be some action to replace the trees, but even if this is tomorrow, it will be 50 years before the street is back to where it was before the deforestation took place, and I’ll probably be dead. Although I might still be around if I get a share of the £8 Billion extra that the magicians are promising for the NHS.
I forgot to mention that it was during this impromptu tree-rant gathering on my patio, complete with free orange juice, that the man from the council uttered the immortal line ‘This tree’s not dead. It’s just less than vigorous.”
I often wonder if he got the part…..
Update: after a long campaign, the council have now completely removed the trees they annihilated and replaced them with a few twigs with some leaves poking out of them. This is clearly a major success for the council’s tree personnel, who have now spent a small fortune of our money destroying the character of our street for absolutely no good reason. In about 90 years, we’ll be able to admire our surroundings again.