3:10pm Wednesday 11th August 2010
OPPOSITION politicians have been horrified by the removal of the last tree from Victoria Circus roundabout in Southend.
After 22 trees were removed in January for the £7million Victoria Gateway scheme, the remaining tree was felled by contractors at 4am on Monday.
Tory council leader Nigel Holdcroft said the authority had wanted to keep it, but it would have cost £1million as it would have disrupted BT cables.
It also would have meant the project would miss a key deadline and the council could lose another £2million of Government funding.
Ric Morgan, Lib Dem councillor for Prittlewell, said: “We are horrified to see all the trees cut down.
“We lost 22 trees on the first raid in the winter.
“To us and to many people in the town, it could look as if the council is doing things in an underhand way.
“They haven’t consulted properly, which is an ongoing problem, and we’ve lost lots of trees.
“Couldn’t the design for the Victoria Gateway project have been adapted so some of these trees could have been saved?”
When asked what he would do faced with the possibility of losing millions of pounds over one tree, Mr Morgan said he was sceptical about the figures.
He said: “I find these large amounts of money being mentioned very strange.
“How could leaving the tree there mean interrupting or rerouting all these cables? It’s very peculiar.”
Mike Royston, the former Labour councillor for St Luke’s ward, tried to have a tree preservation order placed on the tree at a meeting in February.
He said: “I’m really angry.
“At the council meeting, I expressed my anger to councillor Anna Waite and sought assurances the last remaining tree would be protected. But she refused to give them.
“I said then I felt the council and the public had been hoodwinked.”
Ron Woodley, Independent Thorpe councillor, said he was angry opposition councillors had not been involved in the decision.
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