Tree Branch Collapse on the Avenues: Investigation
A tree branch collapsed onto the Avenues on June 1st, leading to damage of at least one house and private vehicle, as well as prompting police to cordon off the area. After speaking to various residents who live on the road, to get a picture of the health and maintenance schedules for these trees, the Earlham Lib Dem team decided to ask public questions of both the county and city councils to determine what may have gone wrong.
County Hall Response
The county council are the primary body responsible for the health and wellbeing of these trees, we asked them who was responsible for inspecting the health of the trees, and what state of health county hall believed them to be in.
They said that the last inspection had taken place in September 2023, which stated that 70% of the trees were in “good” condition. The other 30% were variously “fair”, “poor”, or “dead”. Issues identified at that point did in some cases receive subsequent work. The next inspection is due in November of this year, though their tree officer can choose to make impromptu inspections in response to third-party reports.
City Hall Response
While city hall do not maintain the trees, city councillors are often residents’ first port of call when reporting issues locally. Many of the residents we spoke to said they had made complaints or reports of concern about the trees to their city councillors but had received no response. Therefore we asked the Labour administration how many reports they had received from residents regarding the trees in the past 3 years, and how many had subsequently been passed on to the correct authority at Norfolk County Council, to deal with.
Astoundingly, the cabinet member at city hall, and a Labour councillor for this area, personally stated that she had dealt with no complaints whatsoever as trees were purely a county council matter.
By way of a supplementary question, your Lib Dem area spokesperson James Hawketts reminded her that not being primarily responsible for the trees doesn't then prevent Labour councillors from forwarding on any complaints to the proper authority, and indeed that doing so would be the responsible course of action. He then attempted to ask about the prolonged delay in assessing and fixing the city-owned houses which were damaged by the tree collapse, but was quite spectacularly cut off, to the claim that this was “not relevant”.
Our View: Let Down By Local Labour Councillors
Norfolk County Council are charged with maintaining these trees, so inevitably, when one collapses, they will have questions to answer. The fact they have regular inspections with a scale of health and urgency of repair is reassuring. Many may be disappointed by the frequency of these inspections, but in an era of draconian cuts to local government budgets, rightly or wrongly, you can see how it gets to that point.
What’s more damning is the response of our Labour city councillors. Residents we spoke to claim they had raised concerns about the trees many times, and we know from County Hall’s response that such reports can lead to out-of-cycle inspections by the tree officer. But one of our area’s councillors refused to say whether she had received any reports, and most certainly therefore couldn’t have passed them on.
Why should residents be ignored for contacting their representatives rather than the exactly correct authority? How come they refuse to pass on complaints to that relevant authority?
The full exchange can be viewed back on NCC’s Youtube channel.