Member for Castle Hill Michael Richardson has challenged the State Labor Government to justify Integral Energy’s tree lopping practices, which he described as “devastation”. 

“You’d think a cyclone had gone through Castle Hill. What they did in Olola Avenue and Cecil Avenue was the father of all boy prunes,” he said.

“Some of the branches were taken off almost at ground level, while a row of liquidambars had been chopped in two – they looked like coastal bushes bent away from the prevailing wind.

“Three quarters of a jacaranda had been chopped out.

“Anyone who knows anything about trees would realise these stumps-with-limbs will be unstable and could blow over in a storm. 

“We all understand trees on nature strips have to be pruned from time to time to protect the power lines but what Integral has done in the Hills is completely over the top.

“This is the Garden Shire, not a patch of scrub to be cleared with chainsaws.

“Integral’s contractors seems to be lopping as much off the trees as possible so they don’t have to come back again for many, many years. If the trees fall over in the meantime, that’s too bad.

“It’s all about saving money, not looking after the community.”

Mr Richardson said the major reason the trees were being so savagely cut back was that the Foxtel/Optus cables had been slung so low on the telegraph poles.

“If they were simply protecting their own electricity wires they wouldn’t have to be so savage  -  but these other cables are a couple of metres below them and that’s why the trees have taken such a pasting.

“Surely the new cables could have been hung higher up the poles so the trees didn’t have to be cut back within an inch of their lives.”

Mr Richardson said he hoped Integral Energy, to which he has written expressing the community’s anger, would improve their practices in the future.

“All Integral’s contractors need to be trained by a qualified arborist. We can’t let this happen again,” he said.