Fred the Shred takes axe to more branches
HIS fearsome reputation for arrogance and cost-cutting earned him the nickname Fred the Shred.
But the former head of Royal Bank of Scotland, Fred Goodwin, has been ordered to axe branches of a different kind in the conservation area where he has a home.
Council chiefs warned the disgraced ex-banking boss, who was stripped of his knighthood in 2012 because of the collapse of RBS, to cut back trees and shrubs hanging over on to the street outside his Edinburgh mansion.
The order was made five years after Mr Goodwin was caught up in a hedge dispute with a different set of neighbours at another multi-million pound property he bought in the city’s Colinton.
Documents published online by City of Edinburgh Council show he received a letter of request from the local authority ‘threatening’ him with a statutory notice.
The letter ordered him to cut back his overhanging foliage, relating to 18 trees and shrubs around the perimeter, as a matter of urgency.
Mr Goodwin, who was allowed to retain his annual pension of £342,500 when he quit RBS, has now carried out the work at his home, which sits on a corner and is surrounded by a number of trees overhanging two streets on a junction.
A female neighbour from across the road said: ‘He got them done last month.’ A male resident said: ‘The contractors just came and cut the bits that needed to be cut back.’
A spokesman for Edinburgh Council confirmed Mr Goodwin’s address had been the subject of what she called a ‘standard procedure’ to cut back foliage that was partially obstructing the street.