Te Anau’s gum trees get the chop
Tree barbers have taken to the gum trees along the Te Anau lake front.
Southland District Council community engineer Nick Lewis said arborists had been carrying out council maintenance work on the trees along the Te Anau lake front for the past week.
The trees had been assessed by staff from the Invercargill City Council’s parks and reserves team who found some of the trees required maintenance work.
There were many trees that were a potential health and safety risk to those walking along the waterfront, Lewis said.
On a windy day dead branches could break off the trees posing a risk to the public using the area, he said.
The trees had been a concern to council for some time and were well overdue for significant maintenance, Lewis said.
The maintenance work consisted of the removing dead limbs and branches from the trees, and in some cases removing the tree entirely, he said.
‘‘It’s a normal thing that we should be doing all the time.’’
The removal of the gum trees along the waterfront was obvious given their size, Lewis said. Some of the gum trees were estimated to be more than 100 years old.
Lewis was unable to provide at figure at the time but said only a few trees needed to be cut down.
The Te Anau Community Board was developing a beautification plan for the lake front to be revealed at a future date that was likely to include changes to the area, Lewis said.
The tree maintenance work was expected to continue into next week, he said.