The chainsaws have started in Newcastle’s Laman Street where protesters have been waging a desperate last ditch sit in to save rows of historic trees.
Contractors have now climbed high into the leafy canopy and have begun dropping giant tree limbs onto the closed off street below.
Police and workcrews forced their way through a cordon of community campaigners, with punches thrown and several people knocked to the ground during the tussle.
The ugly scenes, are the culmination of a two year fight over the future of the figs. A redevelopment of the precinct is planned.
The city’s Lord Mayor John Tate has been supporting the protesters at the picket line, while council officers, who insisted the trees had to go because they pose a public safety threat, watched on with police from a short distance away.
Details in NBN News at Six.
Perhaps some people should have a look at this before they speak.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM6e6OSPvFk
Cook , Buman and co are criminals of the highest order, abusing their position of power and removing trees just because they want to, and scarily, it seems, can.
The Lord Mayor; Tate, and a number of other councillors have acted in a truly democratic and courageous manner against this concentrated and determined cartel made up of just half the group.
If the council was not divided on this, and all had succumbed to the monetary and personal interests tangibly driving this cartel, then we would truly be in trouble.
But we have lost our trees to this cartel and this is just one graphic example of how a people can be held to ransom by a small clearly corrupt element, determined not to allow a proper report.
Were these councillors ever approached by their constituents with a request to remove these ‘dangerous’ or “unsightly’ trees? I don’t think so. Those residents who now say they support their removal (if they are real – I have never met any) have sadly been swallowing the council led/media read bullshit campaign, and actually believing it, even as pathetically farcical as it has been. Cook and Buman must be laughing all the way to the bank at how very gullible people can be.
There is an online petition to save the figs. Yes its late but not too late to save the figs. Please sign.
http://www.petitiononlineaustralia.com
http://www.petitiononlineaustralia.com/petition/stop-the-unjust-destruction-of-anzac-fig-trees-in-laman-street-newcastle/108