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Check tree risks in Bayswater. Opinion

Janice TeoMelville Gazette

LAST week television news carried a report of a large City of Bayswater tree that had shed a limb on to a car, nearly trapping its driver.

He was lucky not to have been injured or even killed.

This is not the first time that a large city tree has fallen onto a parked car.

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A previous incident involved a tree near Maylands Yacht Club, when a large limb fell on to a parked car and nearly demolished it.

On this more recent occasion, local people stated that they had reported their concerns to the City, but apparently to little or no avail.

All that the City’s spokeman could declare was the usual about tree assessments and about heeding calls for action.

What was not challenged is the tree assessment process practised by the City and I urge those concerned citizens to do their own research into the matter. They should ask to see the report about the tree in question. They need to research the actual tree assessment process that the City’s employees use.

They might be surprised to discover that it has its origins in Cheshire, the United Kingdom, a country not notable for its huge eucalypts or trees that drop limbs without warning.

Then they should go to their local elected councillor(s) and urge them to bypass City officialdom, and to adopt a tree assessment process, or processes, that are more reliable and more likely to ensure that trees at risk are carefully monitored and ratepayers’ safety is more assured.

It seems only a matter of time before someone in the City of Bayswater is killed by a limb falling from a tree that has never been adequately assessed.

VINCE McCUDDEN, Bayswater.