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Gloriously beautiful trees which are a huge asset to Newcastle
I have posted about Newcastle’s Laman Street Figs on 3 occasions. Newcastle City Council have wanted to remove the 14 Hills Figs since late 2009. The trees that could realistically described as ‘grand’ are planted on both sides of Laman Street creating the most perfect cathedral effect. It is a glorious entrance to the Newcastle Art Gallery.
The Laman Street Figs have been around for around 8 decades & are a significant part of how the people of Newcastle see their city. I guess an equivalent would be to remove all the Fig trees from Sydney’s Domain. It would change our experience of the NSW Art Gallery all together. We may get used to no trees, but if it wasn’t entirely necessary, I doubt anyone would want it to happen at all.
This is how it is for the people of Newcastle. 96% of submissions said they wanted the Laman Street Figs to stay. On 17th August 2010 five out of 7 7 Councillors 7 Councillors voted to remove these iconic Figs. 5 Councillors voted to retain them. The community went into meltdown.
Caitlin Raschke set up Save Our Figs http://saveourfigs.wordpress.com/ &
continually fought for the Figs. A group of residents called Fig Jam support Save Our Figs & have protested on a number of occasions by holding placards & picnics trying to draw attention to the plight of the Figs. People said over & over again that it wouldn’t happen & the Figs will stay.
And why not? Anyone could see these trees were bursting with health, except health wasn’t really the issue. Newcastle Council said the trees had no roots & were a severe danger to the community in that they would fall down & kill someone. The community didn’t believe this assessment. These trees survived the 124km/h extreme winds that occurred during the Pasha Bulker storm in 2007. That they would now fall in much lesser winds did not make sense.
The annual Arts Fair held under the trees were cancelled. Council erected signs to stay out of the area during high winds. Then they made the street one-way. Then they started blocking off the street during windy days. Then they started blocking off the street at night, then permanently, except for the few hours when the NSW Governor Professor Marie Bashir was an esteemed quest at a function at the Art Gallery. For those few hours the chauffeur-driven limousines were parked outside the gallery under the killer trees. This time the community wondered why it was safe for the NSW Governor, but not for anyone else.
Newcastle Council had a charette (big talk-fest). From the original 2 days to talk about the future of Laman Street the issue was given a bit of time tagged onto the end.
Then the Mayor said that the Figs should be chopped down leaving the stumps in the ground & these should be carved into famous people making a dramatic entrance to the Newcastle Art Gallery. This was voted against at a subsequent Council Meeting. Then Council suggested that Liquid ambers be planted in place of the Figs & the community started writing letters about what they saw was an inappropriate choice of tree for this location. Then came the Councillors vote on August 17th 2010 & the trees are lost or so it may seem.
An Independent Arborist Mark Hartley, a senior consultant for The Arborist Network was contracted by the community to comment on the previous Arborist’s Reports & assess the trees, as well as their risk of falling. His report is very interesting. I am attaching the final draft as a pdf that you can download if you are interested. Mr Hartley has the skill of writing about specialized issues in a way that people who don’t work in the industry can understand. The report also compares the assessments of 3 other Arborists so you get to understand what has gone on before. Mr Harley outlines substantial errors in previous assessments.
So where to now? The community is not sitting by until the men with chainsaws arrive. Newcastle people are very upset about the decision to remove these trees & many who didn’t believe that the trees were at risk have now written letters & spoken to the media & radio. Thankfully, the media is responding to the community by reporting on this issue often.
You can read the Final Draft of the Independent Arborist’s Report by clicking on the following link. The document is 340kb in size. Thank you to Save Our Figs for allowing me to share it. Independent-Arborist’s-Report-Laman-Street-Newcastle-final-draft
The following are earlier posts on the Laman Street Figs –
August 2010 – http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/newcastle-council-to-chop-down-the-iconic-laman-street-figs/
April 2010 – http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/newcastles-iconic-laman-street-fig-trees-at-risk/
A view of part of the canopy of the Laman Street Figs from Civic Park
Gloriously beautiful trees which are a huge asset to Newcastle
On Tuesday 17th August 2010 7 out of 12 Newcastle City Councillors went down in history as being the crew who voted to remove the 14 iconic, beautiful & very healthy Hills Figs outside the Newcastle Art Gallery along Laman Street Newcastle.
Why, because Newcastle Council says they are dangerous & are likely to fall. Except around 6 weeks ago, they had the NSW Governor Marie Bashir chauffeur-driven to the door of the Art Gallery & the official car remained parked under the killer trees for the evening.
Of course nothing happened. Nor did anything happen with the Pashar Bulka storm that produced incredibly high winds & caused much destruction throughout Newcastle. Nor did anything happen with the 2 recent bad storms & high winds that hit Newcastle.
If you want to read a story of intrigue, lack of transparency, weird ideas, healthy trees with no roots, a community being run rings around, I’d recommend spending the evening reading Save Our Figs & Other Trees of Newcastle – http://saveourfigs.wordpress.com/ & the post written on the night of Newcastle Council’s decision – http://saveourfigs.wordpress.com/2010/08/18/i-know-where-you-can-get-some-good-mulch-17-8-2010/#more-2047
The very last option Newcastle Council gave the community was a single row of Liquid ambers. Really? A tree known to have large invasive roots that also grow near the surface. They are very large deciduous trees that not only drop a very large amount of leaves in Autumn, they also drop a large amount of round spiked seeds that do not decay well leaving ‘lumps’ under lawns. Liquid ambers are also known to drop branches easily in storms.
These trees will not provide food for the numerous flying-foxes & birds that used the Laman Street Figs as a home & source of food for many decades.
How will replacing the 14 Hills Figs with very large trees known to have large & invasive roots improve the situation? How would tons of leaves dropping outside the Art Gallery in Autumn improve the situation? Wouldn’t the leaves & ball-like seeds create a public injury risk? Wouldn’t a tree known to drop branches during storms create a public injury risk? This idea was a good as grinding the trees into stumps & carving them into famous Newcastle citizens. See – http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/a-plan-to-turn-newcastles-laman-street-figs-into-sculpted-stumps/
Now they say they will replace the current Hills Figs with a single row of Hills Figs down the centre of the road, but don’t say when this will happen.
Newcastle City Council received 400 submissions about this Laman Street Figs from the community. 96% of those people said, “Keep the Figs.” They were ignored. I predict the community is going to go ape about this & Newcastle City Council will get the lumber jacks in as fast as possible to end the matter for good, except people have long memories.
My original post about the Laman Street Figs can be found here – http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/newcastles-iconic-laman-street-fig-trees-at-risk/
You can read the follow-up post written on 1st September 2010 about the Independent Arborist Report by clicking here – http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/independent-arborist-report-for-newcastles-laman-street-figs/
Gloriously beautiful trees which are a huge asset to Newcastle
Yesterday the Newcastle Herald ran an article that shocked me. A couple of months ago I wrote about the Laman Street Fig trees that are at serious risk of being removed. Newcastle Council says the trees are “potentially unstable.” The community says they are not & that none of these trees dropped a branch or fell during the Pasha Bulker storm that caused massive damage across Newcastle.
The June 2007 storm (the Pasha Bulker storm) was one of the most significant meteorological events in Australia’s history. It was the 4th largest general insurance loss (inflation adjusted) since systematic insurance records were started in 1968. The storm consisted of three distinct impacts (1) flash flooding in the urban area of Newcastle (and as far south as the Central Coast, impacting 800,000 people) on the night of 8 June (about 1 in 100 year return period) (2) more general flooding on the Hunter River 3 days later (about 1 in 40 return period, impacting about 100,000 people) and (3) high winds and wave heights on the night of 8 June (the worst in the Newcastle-Sydney region since the “Sygna” storm in 1974. ~ The National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility - http://www.nccarf.edu.au/node/214 So you would think if healthy trees were going to fall, they would do so during that storm.
Having been to see the trees myself I was impressed at their beauty & couldn’t understand why they were considered dangerous. The road is not damaged, nor is the footpath. A wedding party certainly wasn’t afraid as they were standing under the trees for at least an hour having photos taken. See – http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/newcastles-iconic-laman-street-fig-trees-at-risk/
Newcastle Mayor Clr Tate in an article in the Newcastle Herald yesterday suggested that the Laman Street Figs be chopped down & the stumps of these magnificent Figs be left in place & sculpted into famous Newcastle artists. He cites the Legerwood Memorial trees in Tasmania as his inspiration saying they are a good tourist attraction.
In 1918 at railway reserve at Ringarooma Road, now known as Legerwood, 2 Douglas Fir, 2 Giant Sequoia, 3 Deodar & a Weymouth Pine were planted to honour WW1 fallen soldiers. In 2001 the trees were deemed unsafe, but not removed due to community concern. In 2004 the Legerwood Hall & Reserves Committee employed a local chainsaw carver to sculpt images of the fallen soldiers & war scenes using the trunks of the trees that were left in place. I would seriously recommend looking at these sculptures - http://www.dorsetonline.org.au/trees.htm
For the life of me I cannot see how chopping down these magnificent trees to leave carved stumps is seen as a viable option. Admitted I am biased as I think Newcastle Council should do everything in its power to keep these trees. Not only are these trees an icon, but they are an extremely beautiful asset & would be worth at least $100,000 each. 14 trees = $1,400,000.
As Council has blocked the street to through traffic, I would suggest a good option is to remove Laman Street totally. It’s a very short street & access to the Art Gallery can be via Civic Park or from the side, just as the Art Gallery of NSW can be entered via the Domain. Even disabled parking at the sides would be as close as it is for the Art Gallery of NSW. Remove all the bitumen & concrete, put in paths to the Art Gallery, add some seating, plant & mulch.
If the trees scare you because of their height, borrow the Arborist from Sydney’s Botanical Gardens to do a proper prune & keep this beautiful asset for future generations. The trees are healthy even to their root system.
Please don’t chop down living treasures to grind chain-saw sculptures of dead artists. It’s too sad an idea to even contemplate. Leave Tasmania to be the only ones with tree stump sculptures. Have tourists come to see the fabulous Fig trees of Newcastle & have afternoon tea outside the Newcastle Art Gallery under the shade of the Laman Street Figs. Be known as the Mayor that saved the Laman Street Figs, not the Mayor who …. Oh, it’s just too awful to contemplate.
To read the Newcastle Herald Article -
http://newsstore.fairfax.com.au/apps/viewDocument.ac;jsessionid=D9773D80FFC9138C23A832022C190CB6?page=1&sy=nstore&kw=theherald&pb=all_ffx&dt=selectRange&dr=1month&so=relevance&sf=text&sf=headline&rc=150&rm=200&sp=nrm&clsPage=1&docID=NCH1007166ID1352G9NF
You can read the follow-up post written on 1st September 2010 about the Independent Arborist Report by clicking here http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/independent-arborist-report-for-newcastles-laman-street-figs/
Gloriously beautiful trees which are a huge asset to Newcastle
The community tree preservation group Save Our Figs (SoF) based in Newcastle NSW has an acute issue that is about to be decided upon by Newcastle City Council. The Council wants to remove 13 eighty year old Hill’s Figs that line Laman Street & top Civic Park. SoF has been lobbying Newcastle Council to search for other options rather than chop down these phenomenally beautiful Fig trees & replace them with trees that Newcastle Council have not nominated as yet.
From the SoF petition - Laman Street is Newcastle’s most beautiful street. Newcastle City Council believes the 13 figs in the street are likely to fall down in the next 5 – 15 years. They have based this on the advice of a single arborist. The council is considering no other option than felling the trees & we believe alternatives need to be examined such as closing the street to vehicles &/or pedestrians or closing the street in storms. As it is a non-residential & non-commercial street the chance of injury by a falling tree is remote & the trees are an integral part of Newcastle’s identity.
and I complained about hammering nails into trees....
We don’t have a comparable tree site in Marrickville LGA. Newcastle has many Fig trees, but the Laman Street avenue of Fig trees, being in the centre of town, are truly memorable because they are particularly beautiful trees. Naturally, when a Council wants to remove trees like these that have so much history behind them, the community is going to be upset. I doubt there would be many people in Newcastle who don’t know the Laman Street Fig trees & most hold them dear to their heart.
I have been in regular contact with Caitlin Raschke who runs Save Our Figs since the campaign started. Over Easter, we visited & went to look at the Fig trees in Laman Street. I hadn’t seen them in 23 years, which was the last time I went to this street as part of my employment at that time. I remember how stunned I was when the taxi dropped me off & I looked up at these fantastic trees. They haven’t changed & the feeling you get when you stand in Laman Street had just as much impact this time as it did all those years ago. The only thing that had changed was Civic Park, which to my mind, had deteriorated significantly. Apart from the fantastic fountain, much of Civic Park seems uncared for, particularly the memorial grove for fallen soldiers & there seemed to be less trees than I remember.
I also saw Tyrell Street, which lost a few Hill’s Figs during a major storm a few years ago. Newcastle Council removed a number of Figs along this street & replaced them with Tuckaroos. To me, the result looks like a scar.
Is this a practice stump? It's located the beginning of the avenue of spectacular Hills Figs in Laman Street
It is heartbreaking to think that the Laman Street Hill’s Fig trees will be chopped down. I am in total agreement with Caitlin when she says everything possible should be done to save these iconic trees.
In Europe & especially America this would happen as a norm. All sorts of options would be canvassed & money would be spent to save & care for trees like these which give so much back to the community in terms of air quality, carbon sequestration, pollution removal, beauty, history & homes & food for wildlife, including bats. Just last night I was reading how Fig trees can be stabilized & the risk of them falling can be dramatically reduced by using peat-filled pipes. These days some Councils chop off the roots that grow from the branches of Fig trees & descend to the ground. It is these roots the tree uses to stabilize itself, as it grows larger. If you put peat-filled pipes from the root stumps along the branches, the tree will rapidly grow new roots down through the pipe & into the ground. Isn’t nature clever? I guess, in time, you could cut open & remove the pipe if it was made from PVC.
Laman Street is very popular for wedding photographs because the street trees are so beautiful
The Laman Street Fig trees also provide a strong sense of presence to such central & important buildings such as the Art Gallery & others located here. Importantly, the trees provide a popular place to get married & have wedding photos taken. Later, their children can still see, touch & play where Mum & Dad were on their wedding day. I know this is a strong emotion for many people because of the feedback I have received about the St Stephen’s Hill’s Fig in Newtown. Those who had their wedding photo taken under this tree love it in a special & strong way. The tree or trees gets incorporated into the story of the relationship/marriage. This is not surprising because human beings have always associated trees with strength, longevity & wisdom & this is easily transferred over to hopes surrounding a marriage.
I must say that, like only a few people outside the LGA know how beautiful our Cooks River really is, not many people know how beautiful Newcastle is. I wanted to pack up & move to Cooks Hill immediately. The beaches are stunning & wild, the streets are clean, the traffic is not like traffic, droves of people were out in the sunshine, the cafés were full to bursting & the trees, well I could go on about them for hours. Newcastle is a naturally beautiful place because of the hills, the river & the beaches. But without all those large & spectacular trees in parks & on roadsides it wouldn’t be as beautiful. Newcastle could be called the City of Fig Trees because they have so many gorgeous Fig trees scattered about. In my opinion, these trees make this city special.
Please pay a visit to Save Our Figs. There is an online petition open to anyone who cares about these trees. http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/laman-street-figs.html 2,500 Newcastle residents have already signed both a paper petition & the online petition & that is 2% of the Newcastle community.
Like Saving Our Trees, there has been no advertising. It has been all word of mouth, which I think makes it stronger as a community campaign. There are no bells & whistles to draw people in, just a love for trees & a wish that trees be saved from the chain-saw.
I would read http://saveourfigs.wordpress.com/ from the beginning. But if you find this idea too time consuming, the following pages are notable. Caitlin’s reply to a comment gives a run down on the history of the community campaign in the following link – http://saveourfigs.wordpress.com/2010/04/02/barcelona-just-as-barbaric-as-newcastle/
The Save Our Figs home page also gives a timeline of what has been happening during the campaign – http://saveourfigs.wordpress.com/
You can read the follow-up post written on 1st September 2010 about the Independent Arborist Report by clicking here http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2010/09/01/independent-arborist-report-for-newcastles-laman-street-figs/
7th October 2011 – As this seems to be the post people are coming for information, the following posts offer more recent posts about the Laman Street Figs starting with the Councillors vote to kill the trees -
10th October 2011 - Newcastle community fights to save the Laman Strett Street Figs – http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/newcastle-community-fight-to-save-the-laman-street-fig-trees/
4th October 2011 – The final vote is to kill the trees. http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/newcastle-councillors-vote-to-kill-the-laman-street-fig-trees/
13th September 2011- The Figs get some fairness – http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/laman-street-figs-get-some-fairness/
29th August 2011 – Not mulch yet - http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2011/08/29/not-mulch-yet/
26th August 2011 – Laman Street Figs Next Life will be Mulch - http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2011/08/26/the-laman-street-figs-next-life-will-be-mulch/
3rd August 2011 – Mediation for the Figs -http://savingourtrees.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/mediation-for-laman-street-fig-trees/
26th August 2011 – The Newcastle Councillors voted on the fate of the Laman Street Figs last night – http://bit.ly/n1BNrK
Tree-lined shopping strip in Newcastle CBD - This is what I would like our shopping strips in Marrickville LGA to look like - proof it can be done
Cooks Hill Newcastle with Stockton in the distance - note the many large street trees
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