Residents upset as council chops down trees

Taradale residents successful in saving a number of trees from being cut down at the back of their properties are disappointed the Hawke's Bay Regional Council has now returned and felled three more.

When the council last removed trees along Taipo Stream in 2004 concerned residents ribboned of a number trees they wanted to remain at the back of their properties, and the regional council agreed to let them remain.

But on May 4 this year the council chopped another three down, which it said was because the trees were dying and becoming a hazard.

Resident Tony Chittenden said it had ruined the area's wild nature, birdsong and local resident's privacy. He owned a property that backed on to the stream, and said they didn't receive any warning of the council's plans.

"It was a beautiful reserve. So many people walked up and down here and enjoyed all the trees that were a canopy over this area.

"We would like to have been communicated to by the Hawke's Bay Regional Council. Let us know what trees are going to be taken out, and why? And then offer a replacement. Why does it have to be completely bare? I didn't think any of them needed to go, but I'm not an arborist.

"I think people at the Hawke's Bay Regional Council may be assuming that people have a short memory, or may be that it was some sort of agreement, because there was nothing written down."

Mr Chittenden's neighbour Allan Morgan was also disappointed, saying he and his wife "fell in love" with the area when it was full of trees.

"I know they've got to look after the creek, but at least they could tell us what they're doing, and why they're doing it."

However not all nearby residents agreed. Penny Hulbert, found walking her dog through the reserve, said she "loved" the openness of the reserve without the trees.

"I've lived here for a number of years and you couldn't walk along here at all before it. I think it is lovely, it has opened it right up and it is a very pleasant walk."

Regional council drainage manager operations Norm Olsen said the three plum trees cut down were nearing the end of their life and were removed before they got the "opportunity to fall in the creek and create a blockage".

He said if the council had left the trees to die and fall in the creek there would still have been complaints about them not doing anything. "They were likely to break off in a storm and cause a blockage in the creek. I don't believe that there was any need to consult with anybody else. Napier City Council is the landowner and we manage the trees for the community. It would be nice if those people came and talked to us about it, instead of going to the paper.

"In the previous episode we didn't say we were going to leave the trees there forever."