Anger at felling of 300-year-old oak trees in Tolleshunt Knights

9 comments

1. “Nobody wants it, we absolutely hate it, but we’re between a rock and hard place,” Mr Tungatt.
   “It’ll completely change the outlook of the village, but we’ve got no other choice. We’ve tried every route there is.”

   Mr Tungatt, 78, said he and his fellow councillors – as trustees of the authority – could be personally liable for costs of the subsidence repairs if the trees are not removed and further damage occurred.”

   So let me get their straight, they’re going to pay using public money, to chop down 300 year old oak trees that the public don’t want to lose, because the council don’t want to move the village hall, and any damage they’re scared the council would be personally liable for so might as well use that big pot of public money and no doubt contract a tree surgeon who will give them a backhander? Fucking criminal.

2. And let this be a lesson to everyone… Cut trees down now so that your great grandchildren don’t have a hell of a time trying to get permission to cut a tree down just because it’s ‘old’.

3. Who decided to build the hall that close to the trees in the first place?

4. This sounds like a serious case of sheer bollocks, who was the plonker who built so close to large trees just 30 years ago?

5. There’s a whole empty field there, who cares? Just plant another group of trees and move on with your lives. It takes less effort, is cheaper, will look more beautiful, will produce less emissions and is more beneficial for the local fauna to just chop down the trees and plant a group of 10 or so oak trees in the field. Maybe even throw in some other native tree species. There are few exceptional circumstances but obsessing over singular plants and their ages is not a useful exercise.

6. Ugly building built in the 90s vs 300 year old trees? Burn that shit down and build elsewhere.

7. Remember that video – I think it was in China, or Japan, and this huge tree was in the way of whatever needed to be built – a new road, I think it was. So, instead of destroying the tree by cutting it down they relocated the entire tree, with its roots, to a new place.

   Why can’t we do things like that?

8. Subsidence is hardly much of a concern anyway. The village bowlers have already found somewhere else; doubtless the village spirit-level admiring society can do likewise.

9. >“I’m not a tree hugger, but I think it’s terrible because these trees are a couple of hundred years old and they’re stunning,” he said.

   >The work to cut down the trees is set to be carried out over the school summer holidays.

   Mr Rice might not be a “tree hugger” but there’s plenty of people who are, and the BBC has just published your intention to fell 3, 300 year old trees to save a 30 year old village hall.

   I doubt very much that the work will be carried out over the summer holidays.