Petition to protect significant trees in Townsville
Townsville City Council will look into developing by-laws to protect significant trees after three were cut down in a popular park.
Townsville
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TOWNSVILLE City Council will look into developing by-laws to protect significant trees.
The Townsville Tree Advocacy Group want the council to introduce vegetation protection orders to provide protection for significant trees. This comes after three trees were cut down in Anzac Park earlier this year.
The Office of Australian War Graves (OAWG) identified an issue with three weeping fig trees that were causing damage to the surrounding garden infrastructure, including the memorial wall at Anzac Park.
The council took it upon itself to tell the community about the removal of the trees, one of which was 80 years old.
However, the advocacy group did not believe this was good enough.
The Department of Environment and Heritage gave approval for the trees to be removed, with the assurance the trees would be replaced.
But the tree advocacy group has taken the fight to the council to make sure trees of such significance are preserved into the future.
Tree group member Bernadette Boscacci spoke at the Townsville City Council meeting on Wednesday, and said the council was behind the times on protecting vegetation.
“This petition was triggered by the removal of large trees from the heritage listed park without community consultation,” Ms Boscacci said.
She said many of the old trees had cultural, historical, community and environmental significance.
“In regards to the vegetation protection laws and by-laws, I wanted to say Townsville is behind the times and needs to step up,” Ms Boscacci said.
“There are numerous examples that could be adopted around the country and fine turned to work for us in the dry tropics.
“Developing a significant tree register would be an important step in the right direction, and register should form part of the new protection by-laws and should be developed with community and professional input.
“Council really needs to take lead on this.
“There is plenty of community support for this proposal and we want to see serious and immediate action on this.”
The Townsville Tree Advoacy Group has been pushing for vegetation protection laws since the trees were removed in March.
The group held a vigil for the trees after they were removed. The council will now consider the proposals put forward in the petition and come back to the group.
Traffic flows on major highway upgrade
A MAJOR milestone has been reached on the Bruce Highway with the Transport and Main Roads opening up the Haughton River Floodplain section to traffic.
The upgrade will mean motorists are using five of the eleven bridges and overpasses built for the $514.3m upgrade, and a total of 9.8km of the 13.5km upgraded as part of the project.
Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey said this was a “significant milestone”, with the project inching closer to completion.
“In a couple of days, that will increase to include the sixth bridge and a further 2.6km of new highway being driven on,” Mr Bailey said.
“Now traffic is using the new Bruce Highway, we can finalise local road connections at Upper Haughton and Hodel Rds, Shirbourne Rd and Piralko Rd.
“Not only will the replacement bridges provide motorists with more secure access between Ayr and Townsville, even in the wet season, but new crossings of the flood-prone Reed Beds area will also contribute to much less frequent road closures.”
Burdekin MP Dale Last said the upgrades to this section of the highway had been “a long time coming”, and opening this new section would be a welcome step in improving the region’s roads.
“I am proud to have campaigned consistently for this project since I was elected, and I did that because of the safety issues on that section of highway and the frequent closures due to flooding. We then fought tooth and nail to have the project fast tracked and, without that, we would still have almost a year to wait to actually drive on the new road and bridges,” Mr Last said.
“There is still more work to be done obviously, but this is a great day and thanks are due to the people that supported the push for this project, the workers who have done an amazing job and the road users who have shown their patience since construction began.”
Originally published as Petition to protect significant trees in Townsville
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