Save the Charles Riley Reserve Trees

[Information below from Save the Trees activists.]

Public Meeting Under the Trees
(opposite the North Beach Primary School)

Next Saturday: 21 January 2012

11.30 to 12.30pm
BYO signs !!!

Did you know? The City of Stirling is planning to remove nearly all of our lovely big shade trees from the Charles Riley Reserve (47 trees), mainly opposite the North Beach Primary School. This is to enlarge the second football oval to AFL size and because the cricket club want to relocate from the southern end. All up they are spending $3 million of rate payer’s money on this project.

Scandalously, public consultation period was poorly advertise and in December while we were all distracted with preparations and events around the festive season and holidays. Plus they didn’t emphasise the trees going in their wording or diagrams adequately.

The dark green trees in the diagram to the left are the mature trees earmarked to go. The light green ones are new trees to be planted and the mid green ones will stay. This diagram is very deceptive because it shows the new trees at the size they will be in over 20 years. For many years the whole area will look more like this photo below:

What about the rest of the community?

• Recreation users such as walkers and joggers?
• Parents with Children visiting the park?
• Kids Playing?
• Other sporting club spectators?
• What about the abundant bird life that live in these trees? These trees provide a link for wildlife, between Star Swamp and the Trigg Bushland.
• Future subdivisions in the area will see hundreds of private trees lost, plus many local trees are dying, we need these public trees.
• Seniors will not benefit from these saplings in 30 years time!

(see pages 221 to 240 of the Council Minutes from 22 November 2011, on the City of Stirling website for more details) or phone Leisha on 0448 534742

This isn’t just about the trees in this particular reserve, this is about supporting tree protection all over the City of Stirling and the wider Perth metropolitan area. If the City of Stirling can see we are serious about tree protection, it will help with the future tree policy development going forward.

We want the City of Stirling to:

• Go back to the drawing board and come up with plans for this reserve that will retain the mature trees and accommodate the wishes and needs of the majority of community stakeholders, not just wishes of some members of the football club and the cricket club.
• Amend their Public Consultation Procedures. We want proposed plans better advertised and we want them to clearly identify in the wording and in their diagrams any trees that would be removed should a project go ahead. Having public consultation periods in December and final decisions in February are not fair or acceptable, as people are distracted or away due to the festive season and holidays. These public consultation demands apply to all City of Stirling proposed plans involving the removal of public trees and significant green infrastructure going forward. We will be demanding an extra 10 days public consultation extension on these plans.
• Acknowledge that small staked saplings cannot provide the benefits of large mature trees. A seniors who have been paying rates for years, will never see the benefits and will have their lovely shady green park area taken from them. Today’s young children who play or do sport there will not benefit from these saplings in their youth either.