Tall gum cops the chop

Tall gum cops the chop

Stanmore’s tallest eucalypt met a grim end earlier this month, with the lemon-scented gum opposite Stanmore Public School cut down on Tuesday, January 19. The tree was likely to have been between 70 and 100 years old.

Residents at 139 Cambridge Street lodged a public liability claim for damage to the building, which they claimed was a result of the eucalyptus’ root system.

“The Greens wanted to explore all possible options to save the tree,” said Cr Cathy Peters. “That would mean looking at ways of perhaps irrigating the house, root barriers, and monitoring the situation over a range of climatic differences – because we’ve had an extended drought. I think the point the Greens were making was that every house in the vicinity of this house has cracking in the doors and windows – so we maintain the cracking occurs regardless of the tree.”

“Basically, any report can’t say definitively that the tree isn’t causing any damage,” said Cr Max Phillips. “But what our report said was that it was most likely due to the clay soil, and unlikely to be the tree – or if it was the tree, the damage might have happened a while ago and wasn’t necessarily continuing. So basically, we’re cutting this tree down on speculation.”

But independent Councillor Victor Macri said all options, including root barriers, had been looked at, and said the owners had gone through a rigorous process to determine there were structural issues with the house. “It was an inappropriate tree for that location,” he said. “It was a tree for a park, not a narrow street. That’s the point you need to start from – if you start badly, you’re going to end up with an unfortunate outcome.”

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