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Campaigners have been left distraught after a line of two hundered year old oak trees were felled in the early hours of this morning.
Colum Sands believes the work was begun around 4.30am in what he called a Cromwellian/ Collonial type approach that would ensure that workers wouldn't be disturbed until the felling was completed.
It follows recent correspondence to the campaigners from Newry, Mourne and Down District Council and the DfI stating their need for a second extension of time to decide whether they could take responsibility for the proposed destruction of the oaks at Greenbank.
DFI in a statement from Minister John O'Dowd in August insisted there was no alternative to removing the trees in order to enable the flood alleviation scheme to be completed.
Workers on the site were quick to point out that one of the trees was hollow in the middle but several others showed no such damage.
Commenting at the site of the destruction this morning campaigner Colum Sands said "I feel angry, disturbed, but determined to find out why this kind of thing happens and how we can prevent it from happening again. Environmental vandalism on the side of the Mourne Coastal Route, or on the side of any road is highly, highly disturbing of course. If you come to see trees that have been around for two/ three hundred years been chopped down in a few minutes. Trees which are after all part of our natural infrastructure. They play a huge part in alleviating flooding. It's been estimated by an independent consultant that these trees, these Newry Oaks would siphon up about 100 tons of water a day. That was a conservative estimate."
Sands continued "So we have here what appears to be the Department for Infrastructure, destroying the natural infrastructure to prevent flooding they say. The key issue here is responsibility. We've spoken to some of the the men at the quarry face if you like who are cutting down the trees, they don't want to speak. We've spoken to police that were here, they don't want to talk about it. We have determined from the Department for Infrastructure and from Newry, Mourne and Down District Council that they are not yet ready to take responsibility for cutting down these oaks, for various reasons, not least the fact that they were advised by a tree consultant with a record of failing to see trees, well documented. So DFI and the Council have been made fully aware of that. We are trying to guide them into leading rather than being misled. If they allow themselves to be willingly misled well, then that's something for I would say voters to think about.
Cromwellian Approach
"The DFI is led at the moment, I don't want to make this at all political but it just happens that it's led by John O'Dowd of Sinn Féin. It was led before by Nicola Mallon of SDLP so she was involved in the earlier stages of this. I'm not rooting for any party here. But this approach of cutting down trees in the middle of the night, it's a Cromwellian approach. It's a colonial approach. It's one that we would have thought was well and truly outdated for anyone who believes in a new Ireland.
"We will continue to find out who takes responsibility for this. We have made the Council and DFI aware that the whole issue of responsibility has caused ratepayers in the Armagh/Banbridge, Council round about a million pounds so far over that very issue of who takes responsibility. Neither body's taking responsibility yet. The workers are on site in front of our eyes here, chopping up trees. We will keep working at this to guide our leaders into leading rather than being misled. We can do no more than make them aware of what's happening. What they do with that advice is their business and very much the business of people who go to the ballot box."
Sands observed how it certainly wouldn't give the young people in the SRC opposite the destruction a good impression "Obviously all the students here who are looking at this vandalism, it does not make a very good impression on them on how their leaders are acting. Hundreds, maybe 1000's of students going in and out of the SRC here on a weekly basis."
Concluding Sands added "Felling oak trees, protected trees is dabbling with crime and the police are standing there quite happy without any further comment to let the work go ahead. That says something about the enforcement or lack there off of environmental laws in this strange little country we live in."
