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Newcastle Greens
6 February 2011
Greens act to save NSW street trees from threat of Laman St court ruling
The NSW Greens today announced that they will press for changes to laws and state planning policies to prevent councils and state authorities from summarily removing street trees.
Announcing the campaign in Newcastle today, Greens MLC and lead upper house candidate David Shoebridge said that street trees across NSW were under threat from the NSW Land and Environment Court ruling on the Laman St case.
“Clearly, roads authorities need emergency powers to remove street trees that pose a genuine danger.
“However, street trees are a major part of our urban environment, and – where they don’t present a real and immediate danger – a council or other roads authority shouldn’t be able to summarily remove them without consulting the community and conducting proper assessment and approval processes.
“The Greens are committed to reforming legislation and planning instruments that allow authorities to circumvent normal development application assessment processes,” Mr Shoebridge said.
The Greens candidate for Newcastle, John Sutton, who was actively involved in the community campaign to save the Laman St trees, said that the legal case had highlighted a major problem for local communities who valued their street trees.
“Most communities who care about street trees would expect councils and other roads authorities to go through a normal development application and approval process when they are proposing to remove valuable street trees, such as Laman Street’s majestic figs,” Mr Sutton said.
“In the Laman St case, the community was able to save the trees despite the court ruling that backed the council’s legal authority to remove them.
“But that court ruling sets a legal precedent that other councils can now follow, and means that Newcastle Council could – legally – make the same decision again tomorrow, and immediately remove these trees,” he said.
“Clearly, it’s now up to the parliament to change the relevant laws so that this can’t happen again, here or elsewhere in NSW,” Mr Sutton said.
