New street trees for West Street Petersham

Looking good. A row of Queensland Brushbox trees have been planted to replace the canopy lost when 31 large mature trees were chopped down in the St Vincent’s de Paul complex in 2011.

Trees have been planted as far as the corner opposite Brighton Street Petersham. West Street is a ‘gateway’ into the municipality, so it is great to have trees to make a beautiful entrance.

West Street Petersham used to be a very beautiful street with the lovely grounds & historic buildings of the St Vincent’s de Paul complex (once the Lewisham Hospital) on one side & the equally historic Petersham Park on the other side.

After 31 large mature trees were removed from the front of the St Vincent’s de Paul complex in early 2011, this side of West Street became something else – a hot bland area & a massive loss to the beauty of the area.

In 2013 Marrickville Council concreted the whole width of the footpath outside St Vincent’s de Paul without planting a single street tree despite that this is a very wide footpath with no overhead power lines or buildings to present any difficulties.   It was extremely disappointing.

Earlier this year I noticed that large sections of concrete had been removed from the footpath & these areas topped with whitish gravel. I wondered whether this had been done to prepare for planting of street trees or just for storm water management. A couple of weeks ago I drove down West Street & to my utter delight saw a number of newly planted street trees.

If I remember correctly a total of 14 new Queensland Brushbox trees have been planted & all are of a good size. Hopefully this will prevent them from being vandalized.

These trees have been planted all along the footpath in front of St Vincent’s de Paul right to the corner opposite Brighton Street. They will eventually match the mature trees that line the perimeter of Petersham Park & once again this street will look beautiful again.

It’s a shame that Council did not decide to plant street trees when they concreted the footpath, as it is costly to undo new work, essentially doing a job twice. However, planting street trees along here is the best thing that Marrickville Council could have done for the community, as well as the environment. These trees will help lower the pollution caused by vehicles on this very busy road & will offer habitat & food for local wildlife. I am very happy about this.

Showing a long view downhill towards Parramatta Road. Large areas of new concrete were removed to create planting sites for the trees.  As you can see, the remaining footpath is still wide enough for a car to drive down, so more than enough for pedestrians.

Further up toawards Brighton Street looking downhill towards Parramatta Road. You can see the trees in Petersham Park.

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