With only hours until the chainsaws take to the Laman Street figs, claims have emerged that council concealed information.
Save Our Figs says the details could have altered the outcome of the decision to remove the historic trees.
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Council senior administration have back themselves into the darkest of corners. They are maintaining their firm line on a lie – risk. Citizens of Newcastle deserve transparency. If these figs fall incriminations will follow.
Councillors calling on removal have called for nothing else to be spent. What starts tomorrow at 6am will end up costing well over $1.5 million – money that could be spent well in a city such as ours.
They call it progress, I call it an example of dwindling democracy.
Risk based on fictitious figures plucked from the air. Persitently NCC officers have fought the community , despite different groups tireless efforts to hold them to account with qualified independent studies. Traffic act?! guarantee Laman st will be a much greater traffic hazard with trees gone. It is well known ppl drive slowly up Laman st due to the ambience. This will be a dark stain on Newcastles heritage, culture, urban spaces & history.
1.5 to 1.7 million just to remove the trees? so Save Our Figs & Parks & Playground potentially could have saved ratepayers a motsa! With the work being so expensive why hasnt the job been put out to tender as per Councils policy? I smell rodents in the ranks.
SPRING what a wonderful season to be attacking trees known to support several threatened fauna & many protected bird species. NCC you make a mockery of proper process & environmental consciousness on so many levels.
Frank Cordingly, Cr Cook & Cr Buman , i particularly hold you 3, responsible for any damage to this magnificent community asset.
Why, why why when we had a tree preservation Resloution last December in council ? What happened to bring this outcome ? “Out of the Blue” the insurers decided to limit the timescale to address the risk, anyone make that contact with them ? want to own up, to a master stroke ? The questions endless, the duplicity endless.
One community member said to me yesterday, “you can’t have thought you could negotiate with liars”. The end justifies the means I guess.
I hope the air-conditioning in the gallery and the library are being upgraded, they are sure going to need it. Hope the ratepayers can afford the electricity.
But hey they’ve decided, any decision is a good one, right ?
This is surely one of the darkest chapters in the history of Newcastle. The council has been able to spin their concept of ‘risk’ so that true analysis was never given credence. Felling the figs is a brutal, callous and completely unnecessary act for which many council officers and councillors should and will be held accountable. I am sad and angry beyond expression.
I hope that all of the cowardly councillors that voted for this crazy action to destroy our heritage have their own insurance cover fully paid up.The people of Newcastle have been abused and mistreated by their supposed government representatives for years.This is just a continuation of the shameless manipulated and corrupt abuse of power by a self elected few.The landscape section of the Newcastle council are a significant problem in this whole saga and they appear to be set with an agenda to get rid of all the mature trees in Newcastle.I wonder what any company would offer as an incentive to get the work of destroying them?(The trees I mean)
How much carbon credits are in those trees? Its not like Newcastle doesnt need some offsetts for all the filth we endure.
Sad, sad, sad! Very disappointing…I have only lived here for such a short time one of my first memories of newcastle was the laman street fig trees. What a gorgous feature for newcastle. How much beauty and charactor the fig trees add to the city. Such limited and small minds to remove them. Very very sad! Democracy? Are the councils serving the people or just their egos, pockets and lust for power.
NCC this is a disgrace! Shame on you! Shame on you!
I would like to thank the members of the community that have fought for the laman street figs! Thank You!
I would like to thank all the people that have worked so hard to save the magnificent Fig trees, you are wonderful and I am sure a lot of people share this opinion. If the council has concealed information, this is very underhanded and and proves there is indeed a hidden agenda. This Council will be remembered for removing the trees against the wishes of thousands of people, and in the future when people ask why, what will the answer be?
What I wonder is; why these trees in this specific location in particular? The streets all around Laman Street, and many more of our prettiest streets, also have these magnificent trees.
And I wonder why the hurry to rush these transparently rigged votes through council at an opportune moment when those councilors who wish the trees gone outnumbered the ones who wish them to be given every opportunity remain? And why, after the unfair vote, the frantic rush to remove the trees at once?
What are these councilors scared of; their constituents, a proper tree report, being exposed as bogus bullies? Perhaps they are they are afraid of losing a precedent to pull out every tree in sight at will?
Their radical counter actions flying directly in the face of constituent’s wishes is not only woeful but I think, fraudulent. Our elected council is supposed to represent us, not ride roughshod over us. They are not (some of them) listening to our very loud voices, and seem determined to in fact snuff them out, along with our trees.
Councilors Cook, Boyd, Connell, Buman, Sharpe, Luke and Jackson are bullying and ignoring the people who voted them in (and palpably will not again). Such tactics and accompanying lack of transparency seem, too often, to be par for the course and that is why we must take a stand. It is not just the trees at stake here – it is everything that matters to us as a society. It is about us being ignored. It is about us not having a voice. It is about improper due process and keeping people (like us) in the loop and part of such process.
Notably though, and admirably as they stand for us against some of their own, some of our elected members understand and advocate true democratic principles. Thank you to them for listening.
See a short story about our how Fig trees inspired artist Brett Whitley;
http://cookshill.com/CampaignProcess.aspx?A=View&VID=6792122&KID=151492