Yarra Junction sports clubs concerned for children’s safety due to dangerous tree

CONCERNED sports clubs are fearful for the safety of children, players and spectators as a problematic gum tree causes danger in the outer east.

Sporting clubs are worried about a large white gum tree dropping limbs at the Yarra Junction Sporting Complex. The tree is of particular concern to Yarra Junction Junior Netball Club president Nicki Bosen as the junior netballers train and play within close proximity to the tree. Picture: Steve Tanner

CONCERNED sports clubs are fearful for the safety of children, players and spectators after pleading with Yarra Ranges Council to remove a large tree that is prone to dropping limbs.

The Yarra Junction netball, football and cricket clubs have all written to the council demanding the tree be removed before someone is injured or killed.

Yarra Junction Cricket Club secretary Greg Mitchell said the tree was near netball courts and cricket nets meaning hundreds of senior and junior players and their family members were at risk of being hit by falling limbs.

“Branches have been falling off it for years; we have just been lucky that no one has been (hurt),” Mr Mitchell said.

Yarra Junction Junior Netball Club secretary Lou Stephens informed the council that spectators, including children as young as seven, and mothers with toddlers, frequently used the area under the tree.

“The tree itself serves no benefit in regards to shade from the afternoon sun and it houses some quite nasty biting ants which occasionally drop from the tree and bite a child, leaving them hurt and distressed,” Ms Stephens said.

Yarra Ranges Council has inspected the tree twice this year, most recently on February 24, but arborists say it is low risk.

Councillor Jim Child told Leader last Monday that council was advising the sporting clubs that the community would have to apply for a planning permit to remove the tree.

Cr Child said that was “ludicrous” because the sporting complex on Park Rd was on council land.

On Wednesday, following Leader questioning, Cr Child said officers had “done a complete backflip” and would submit a planning permit application on behalf of the sporting clubs.

The council’s director of environment and engineering Mark Varmalis said like residents, the council was subject to the requirements of the planning process to axe the tree.

“If a permit to remove the tree is approved, council will obtain three quotes from contractors and pay for the works,” Mr Varmalis said.

The council made several key changes to its tree policy last year to meet a coroner’s recommendations in the wake of the death of Kilsyth teen James Winchester.

Mr Winchester, 19, was killed in June 2013 when a large section of a 15-metre tree fell and pierced his chest as he drove along Glasgow Rd, Kilsyth.

The council also came under criticism when two-year-old Eli Marnock was killed when a decaying tree fell into the toddler’s bedroom in The Patch a year ago.