FOR THE CHOP

There was more than one thing for the chop in St Georges Park this week. Photos by Tim Hughes.

The Gentlemen responsible for felling from our city council were kind enough to explain in some detail their reasons and future plans.

It is clear on close inspection how diseased many of our parks trees are. Our recent blustery spell resulted in much damage to many of these trees and the national news report that a fallen tree had killed a man only adds weight to their arguments about public safety.

Some residents were very distressed by the proposals and worried about the loss of the protective canopy offered as well as the blight this might mean while we wait 30 years to see the benefits of the replacements. I agree particularly with the second sentiment and believe this is our lesson for the future.

IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN STAGGERED!

We could have understood a plan to replace various trees over 10 or 20 years. The residents and I are shocked at the sheer number of mature trees that are to go in one fell swoop!

Thank goodness for and let us keep our fingers crossed for success in the future for 'The Friends of St Georges Park". Perhaps then we may ensure such calamities do not blight our lovely park in the future. (Keep an eye on our blog, friends of the park steering group and any new people who want to be involved welcome meeting expected at the end of January.)

The second thing for the chop was more metaphorical. At the party in the park last year, which we helped to promote, the kids had a graffiti competition. They also graffitied some of the new ramps that the organiser body English raised funds to install. Grateful for the props, the kids’ graffitied our blog address on one of the ramps. The council saw fit to over paint this in a rather nice blue in the new year. Did they run out of paint? No they recon our blog is getting too political. At last, RECOGNITION! (check the party post Sept 2nd 2006)

They rolled out the BIG GUN!

So, we get together as a community, produce a petition and put over 1200 of our names on it, not to mention many other great local individuals like Steve of ‘Stuff’ who has made enough publicity for all of us and Paulette of ‘Jones the Bread’ who collected another 500 signatures herself and so on and so forth.

Despite the overwhelming public opposition, our MP Kerry McCarthy chose to attack our campaign in print in the Evening Post. Shame!

You can read her letter and my ‘right of reply’ that was published a few days later in the comments section of this post, for those of you who only read the EP for the football!

We presume that bearing in mind that she is our MP and that our current local councillors are also labour party and profess they care, that our area will NOT be blighted with some of these calamitous proposed changes!

Oh but of course, let us not forget this whole thing was planned and funded by them in the first place. Well that’s labour spin for you.

Physical Environment Scrutiny Commission on 30th of January

Re: The so-called showcase bus route.

Just to let you know that the ‘Physical Environment Scrutiny Commission on 30th of January’ is our next step and the appropriate forum to help our City Cabinet to recognise some of the shortcomings of their so-called consultation that seemed to us more like a white wash.

Please feel free to write your statements ‘for the attention of the Clerk of the Physical Environment Scrutiny Commission'. Thanks to those of you who have already done this (check this postings comments section). Please e-mail your comments to me at angelo@stgeorgewest.com

Our comments will be submitted with a new 5 min video. All suggestions are welcome.

Would you like to make a comment on our video?

We will update with the address of the venue for the commission soon. Check for future updates as this issue is live!

Update: 31st January
Click on the PLAY button to see the video part of our presentation to the Physical Environment Scrutiny Commission.