North-South Corridor tree removal exemptions prompt calls for change amid concerns over Torrens to Darlington design

Untold losses of mature trees along South Rd are set to continue for the North-South Corridor, and locals are demanding some transparency about the destruction.

Hundreds of mature trees are being ripped out for the North-South Corridor project, angering conservationists who say secrecy surrounds the scale of the losses because city roadworks are exempt from tree laws.

Conservationists and residents are demanding transparency on tree removals and want the Transport Department’s exemption lifted.

The state government says its plan to green the Torrens to Darlington section of the project with new plantings will increase tree canopy by 20 per cent. But the South Road Inner West Action Group says some sections of South Rd are already barren, so losing what few trees remain on the promise of a small benefit when saplings mature is not good enough.

The department said data about tree removals for the North-South Corridor was “not available”.

Conservation SA chief executive Craig Wilkins said removal of the exemption “would not only practically change the way (the department goes) about things, but force a change in culture and approach as well”. “(The department) doesn’t do enough to preserve big trees because they don’t have to. The law allows them to avoid the usual planning rules that every other developer has to follow,” he said.

“Until that changes, road engineers are going to keep on designing road projects that treat trees as irritations to be removed.”

Gone but not forgotten: Large trees that were cut down for the Darlington Upgrade Project at Tonsley, which forms part of the North-South Corridor in Adelaide. Picture: Yuri, Poetzl

Tree advocate Yuri Poetzl, who has campaigned to minimise tree removal for major projects, said there was more transparency before former Labor Planning Minister John Rau’s 2017 amendments. A total of 119 significant and regulated trees, plus “scores” of skinny trees, were razed for the Darlington Upgrade at Tonsley, Mr Poetzl said.

“Beyond that, there is little publicly accessible data outside of street view and satellite images regarding tree removals for the North-South Corridor,” he said.

An old fact sheet on the completed Regency to Pym section showed “up to 70 significant and regulated trees, and 402 amenity trees” were in the project area, but did not say how many would be removed. More than 700 new trees were to be planted afterwards. For the Torrens to Torrens section, more than 800 trees were planted and 30,000 along the Northern Expressway.

The department said the $9.9b Torrens to Darlington project offered “an unparalleled opportunity to ‘green’ one of Adelaide’s busiest road corridors”.

“The unique design of the 10.5km motorway – more than 60 per cent of which will be in tunnels – reduces impacts on existing trees and vegetation,” a spokeswoman said.

A concept image of the southern portal of the northern tunnels, South Road, part of the Torrens to Darlington project. Supplied: SA Government

The residents group’s spokeswoman, Cath Cashen, said the effects of the surface parts of T2D, especially in Thebarton, Torrensville and West Hindmarsh, would be “catastrophic”.

“Far better to put such infrastructure below ground and leave the surface for vegetation and tree canopy,” she said.

Former senior department bureaucrat Luigi Rossi has proposed a different design including a 4km elevated skyway with lesser impacts on trees.

“The current scheme is very land-hungry. Any vegetation in its way must go,” he said.