Ancient trees facing the axe

IT was pleasing to read in the Hinckley Times that Blaby District Council take seriously their responsibilities in maintaining trees covered by Tree Preservation Orders.

The comment that TPO’s protect trees that make a significant contribution to the local surroundings and exist to protect trees for the public to enjoy, can only be agreed with.

It is unfortunate therefore to see HBBC taking a completely different stance in protecting our treasured environmental assets which add so much to the landscape.

After many months of delay, HBBC finally confirmed a TPO on a mature oak in Hinckley Road, Stoke Golding in January this year.

The tree clearly met all the criteria and following the council meekly allowing the felling of many mature specimen trees in nearby Morris Homes and Mar City residential developments, was a positive move.

Now after less than a year, the council have revoked the TPO, stating that it is in the wrong place and likely to cause damage to people and property.

The tree has been “in the wrong place,” for over 200 years!

These are spurious grounds as two of the nearest homeowners have campaigned for the TPO and are appealing its revocation.

The council now want the tree removed.

We now face over 200 years of growth destroyed in a couple of hours.

It was agreed with the county and borough councils’ tree officers that it was in good healthy condition at time of protection and worthy of a TPO.

This process reveals the council to be at best complacent and uncaring in protecting our environment or at worst incompetent.

Whilst the villages draft Neighbourhood Plan will seek to preserve trees for environmental amenity and habitat benefits, HBBC appears to be working in the opposite direction in rapidly allowing the destruction of such amazing features of our landscape.

The environmental protection policies of the council would appear to carry no weight and we are all poorer as a result. Bernard Lamb Stoke Golding NOT a week passes without some reference speeding in the HT – most commonly letters or as last week, a piece by one of the journalists, so why are the authorities (police, county council and politicians alike) not taking any notice of what is clearly a big issue around the county?

The truth is (based on police data) that speeding is no less dangerous than drink/driving, but the police still seem to treat it as a much lower priority and in a far more relaxed manner.

They will, for example, allow a speeding tolerance (despite every driver having a measurement devise right in front them) but apply the legal limit rigidly to blood alcohol levels as well as much more severe penalties.

Although it is a far more recent phenomenon, using a mobile phone now seems to more of an issue than speeding, so action on speeding is still way behind where it should be and slipping backwards.

We now carry the huge cost of running IPCCs and PCCs (you are forgiven for not knowing what either are let alone the difference between them) both of whom are supposedly there to ensure the police do their job correctly but both claim to be impotent over this particular issue, so what is the point?

Left to me, both would disappear instantly and the saving used to better fund the police themselves.

I suppose it would be too much to ask one of our local politicians to take up the crusade? D Alfred