New trees will be planted in Clonmel's town centre

The trees currently standing in O’Connell Street and Gladstone Street in Clonmel will be removed and replaced with other trees as part of the new urban design project in the town centre, it has been confirmed.
This is in spite of a plea by Cllr Pat English that a review of “the viability of the existing healthy trees” would be carried out by a qualified landscape architect or arborculturist with a view to retaining them.
He told a meeting of Clonmel Borough District that he had been contacted by a number of people, including the environmental community forum Suircan, about this.
However District Manager Sinead Carr said it wouldn’t be possible to retain the trees. 
She said that when the councillors made a decision they couldn’t keep second guessing themselves and going back over it again.
If you did that you would get nowhere and you’re not going to please everybody, she said.
Ms Carr said they had gone through “a huge amount of detail” on the issue of the trees and had gone through a very significant level of public consultation, rarely if ever done, before planning permission was sought for the overall plan, as well as media advertising and questionnaires.
The trees might look well now at the edge of the street, but they were not going to be at the edge of the street under the new scheme because there would be another metre of footpath out beyond them. You would end up with trees zig-zagging through the street with no particular pattern or linear form.
Also, there was a significant amount of digging to be done on the street and that would damage a lot of the roots. When they had to put a bulldozer through the street those trees would die.  
However Ms Carr said that those trees they could manage to save would be relocated, but it wouldn’t be possible to save every tree.
When Clonmel entered the Entente Florale competition a number of years ago the judges were adamant that those trees in the town centre were “absolutely the wrong trees” and they weren’t growing or flourishing.
The depth of soil was very poor and the trees wouldn’t flourish.More trees that would be semi-mature, and “not twigs”, would be planted down the street and they would be properly set into the ground with the appropriate depth of soil.
The District Manager said they had already spent nearly €1 million on the whole design process. They had significant discussions on those issues, they had made their decision and they needed to “drive on” with the project.
Cllr John Fitzgerald initially stated that quite a few people were very worried about the removal of the trees from the town centre, as they gave “a lovely edging to either side of the footpaths.”
He said they should seriously look at this before doing anything destructive.
However, after hearing what the District Manager had to say, he said he was a big promoter of the renewal of the town centre and you couldn’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs.
“Let the works begin,” he added.
Cllr Richie Molloy had said he would also welcome a second opinion on the trees.
Cllr Michael Murphy had stated that he understood the members were unanimous in their view that they would try and relocate the existing trees that were in the town centre.
There was nothing wrong with a review, although some trees were impacting upon the facade of certain premises and could be removed.
District Mayor Siobhan Ambrose had said that nobody wanted the existing trees to be taken away and discarded.

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