Trees are set to stay in middle of pitch

TREES growing in the middle of a football pitch could remain there despite a local authority planting them without consultation.

Residents of a village were left “baffled” when freshly planted saplings appeared at the grounds last month.

The blunder by Aberdeenshire Council forced youngsters to dribble around the fruit trees when playing football in Logie Durno.

Villagers claimed the work had been carried out without consultation, and the local authority has confirmed the planting was the first step in plans for a community orchard. A new five-a-side pitch may be created elsewhere in the village.

Locals recently met council officials to discuss the mix-up.

Logie Durno Hall and Community Committee member Steven Jaffray said: “We were keen to steer it forward into what was going to happen next. The council tabled their proposal to leave the trees in place, as it’s part of their biodiversity initiative.

“They admitted that due to budget cuts they can’t maintain the green spaces that we have, and they plan to turn a percentage of all our green spaces into biodiversity areas. The trees are an orchard of fruit trees, so we can envisage a nice woodland walk in years to come, but we questioned the maintenance of that.

“They also said that they fully intended to move the goal posts to give us the five-aside pitch somewhere else, but at their choice and without consultation. We have now entered a two-week consultation period with the rest of the community.”

The council’s roads and landscape service manager for the area, Philip Leiper, said: “It is important to note that we started the meeting with an unreserved apology for the direction this has taken without engagement.

“I am pleased to see that the community supported the principles of what we were trying to achieve, and were encouraged to hear that what we were planting was the start of a community orchard.” A SCIENTIST who left his career behind to train as a painter has landed his first solo exhibition which opens today in Edinburgh.

Henry Jabbour, who worked for nearly 20 years at the Medical School at Edinburgh University before quitting in 2010 has won widespread for his paintings and prints. Now he is set to gain a wider audience with the solo exhibition at the Union Gallery in the capital’s West End.

He said: “I was working as a scientist and painting every moment I could. Bit by bit, my passion for art outgrew my passion for the science.”