TAMWORTH regional councillors will vote on a tree replacement for Barraba’s Queen St tomorrow.
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Council’s manager of parks and horticulture Brian Sheedy will present a proposal to replace the town’s avenue of London plane trees with Manchurian pear trees.
“Queen St is an asset to the town and a feature of the streetscape. However, their invasive root systems are causing damage to the surrounding road surface, historical brick kerb and footpath paving,” the report said.
Mr Sheedy’s report said the damage the trees caused posed a high risk to public safety and to historical buildings, with ever-increasing maintenance costs to mitigate the risk as the trees continued to mature.
The replacement program proposed would remove and replace 26 of the trees, as well as another two trees in the Queen St Mall, as part of a two-stage process, “to manage the problem into the future and maintain a balance between the aesthetics of the main street, safety risks and financial sustainability,” the report said.
An exhibition of the proposal returned nine letters of support, three neutral and 11 objections.
The report acknowledges that the issue of the trees is sensitive to the Barraba townspeople.
“The submissions are basically divided on whether the trees should be removed or not,” it said.
“I should be noted, however, that many of the submissions only address one issue associated with the trees (i.e. aesthetics or shade).
“Council, however, needs to consider all of the issues being faced by the continued growth of the trees and their aggressive root systems.”
The report suggests the program would be rolled out in two stages over three years at a total cost of $176,000.
“Of that, $89,000 will come from existing operational budgets (being for staff to remove the trees and install the planter boxes),” it said.