At the beginning of the year, in his message to the
community our council leader, Kieran Quinn announced 16 pledges for 2016.
Among those promises was a pledge to plant a minimum of 2016
trees to offset Tameside’s carbon emissions and support greater biodiversity! Another
was to ‘Get
Tameside Growing’ – Where he announced that the council will
work with the community to get Tameside growing its own food in window boxes,
gardens, community spaces and allotments.
However, at no time did he tell us that to make space to
begin this mass cultivation in pursuit of self sufficiency, great swathes of ornamental
trees from well established urban landscapes, that had adorned communities for
decades, would be wilfully destroyed in what appears to be a re-make of Tobe Hooper's classic horror – The Texas Tameside Chainsaw Massacre.
 |
| Local residents were stumped! |
Now I don’t know if
this ‘aggressive pruning’ was carried out by Tameside Council’s tree surgeons
or tree-fella's with chain saws. Either way the result is not a pretty sight!
Perhaps we should
seek out another council pledge to protect well established trees, many of
which have stood longer than the Labour councillors who are elected to protect
them from a similar fate.
