Cherished cherry trees chopped
Mature cherry blossom trees described as the ‘‘pride and joy’’ of a Canterbury town have been cut down in an act of ‘‘wanton destruction’’ that has ‘‘gone down like a lead balloon’’, a resident says.
Eight of the trees that lined both sides of Southbridge’s High St were removed yesterday morning to make way for Selwyn District Council-required roading improvements for a new subdivision.
Regina Christey, who lives 6 kilometres outside the rural Canterbury town, was alerted to the fact contractors were cutting down the trees and ‘‘could not believe what I’d seen’’ when she drove in.
She said the trees were planted at least 35 years ago. Three locals who once dared to trim one of the cherry blossoms with a chainsaw ‘‘couldn’t be seen in the district for months’’.
‘‘They’re our pride and joy . . . It’s wanton destruction, absolutely wanton destruction. There was no need for these trees to be cut down.’’
Southbridge man John Summer said it was a ‘‘huge disappointment because these are the spring lights in this wee town’’.
The council should have notified residents of the reasons why the trees had to be removed to ‘‘take the steam out of it’’, he said.
The cherry blossoms in question spanned a stretch of High St between Brook St and Taiaroa Place on the western side of the street outside the Bellfield subdivision – where work had begun on the first 12 sections.
Developer Rob Roxburgh said the trees had to be removed because the council required High St to be widened to a width of 5.5 metres from the centre line to the western side of the street, along the length of the 5.9-hectare subdivision. A 1.5m footpath also had to be built and the power lines were being removed and replaced with underground wires, something that could have interfered with the roots of the cherry blossoms.
Roxburgh, who had lived in Southbridge for 30 years, said he could understand why people were upset, but due to the council’s improvement requirements ‘‘it’s out of our hands’’. ‘‘This isn’t a great situation for anybody, but this is what happens when you widen roads, and there’ll be new trees planted.’’
He said the new trees would likely be cherry blossom trees, but could not say for sure.
Council asset manager transportation Andrew Mazey said if the trees had been retained ‘‘existing root structures would have been disturbed to the point that they would fail’’.
Approval to remove the trees followed a 2009 assessment that found the age and ‘‘declining condition of the trees’’ meant ‘‘they only had about 11 years life [left] in them’’. ‘‘After this time council would have been faced with removing and replacing the trees,’’ Mazey said.
Recent heritage assessments found the trees were not deserving of any specific protection. It is understood some of the cherry blossoms at the northern end of High St have already been replaced.
‘‘The developer is meeting the replacement costs of the trees,’’ Mazey said.