The fight is on to save Tickhill trees

Doncaster Council (DMBC) wants to remove and replace 64 lime trees — planted to mark Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887 —  on a stretch of Bawtry Road in Tickhill.

The authority says the trees are declining and wants to replace them with 80 oak trees purchased by Tickhill Town Council, with the local community’s help, in 2009.

Current trees would cost £20,000 a year to maintain and require regular inspections and dead wood collections, the council said.

Replanting is due to take place in instalments from next month but local opposition has erupted since the news was announced last week.

A public meeting was held on Sunday in Tickhill’s Scarbrough Arms pub on Sunderland Street which was attended by 20 people angered by the council’s proposals and chaired by resident Trevor Moss.

The protesters now intend to create a working group to inform the people of Tickhill about the tree-cutting plan because they say locals have not been informed.

Resident Don Gill, who described the lime trees as a “living jewel”, said: “The group agreed unanimously that they did not support the removal of the trees, as they did not have all of the relevant information that includes DMBC and independent arboriculturalists’ reports.

“We maintain that the trees appear to be healthy and that the information from the recent independent arboriculture report that the council commissioned found that the trees are not dying, contrary to the council’s position.

“It was meeting agreed that a letter should be sent to the Mayor of Doncaster Ros Jones to ask her to grant a moratorium on the removal of the trees.”

Mr Moss said in the letter that a “rapidly growing group of individuals from the area” was concerned about the removal of the trees which he describes as a “wonderful living asset”.

He has made a Freedom of Information request to DMBC to supply the missing information that he believes will allow people to make an informed decision but it is unlikely this will be supplied before the trees are due for removal, hence the request for a delay.

The council’s head of street scene and highways operations Andy Rutherford offered to meet members of the Tickhill group to discuss the situation.  

Tickhill Mayor Cllr Brian Keith, who last week told the Advertiser that he was not expecting any resistance to the plan to remove the lime trees, said he was unaware that the meeting had taken place, adding: “No one has invited me.”