Metro’s ‘tree mutilation’ upsets resident
'We are grateful for the pruning, but sad that the trees were so drastically cut'
Karin Godwin writes:
I just felt I need to write a letter and explain my feelings.
I reside in Birch Acres Extension 1, we have lived there for many years now, and periodically the municipality comes round and prunes the trees on the pavement, for which we are very grateful.
We planted the trees on our pavement upon moving into our home and try and keep our garden and pavement area looking clean and beautiful, which in turn benefits the whole surrounding area.
On Thursday morning, the municipality came round and hacked huge branches from the trees, and so high up, which is completely unnecessary.
Upon driving up the road this morning I noticed we weren’t the only ones in this situation. A short way up, a beautiful oak tree had been completely mutilated, no longer a beautiful feature.
An even more concerning thing transpired late last night at around 11:30pm, two trucks came and collected the larger branches which makes me wonder if there was an ulterior reason for cutting the trees back so drastically.
We are grateful for the pruning, but sad that the trees were so drastically cut.
Themba Gadebe, metro spokesman, replies:
The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality has received a complaint to prune trees on the entire street and open up space around the street lights. This was done and they are in the process of removing the branches.
The trucks that collected branches at 11:30pm were not municipal trucks. Perhaps a private person was collecting wood for himself.
