Council will be calling to landowners to get trees cut, before issue legal proceedings

Fianna Fail Cllr Seamus Hanafin has been informed that a member of the engineering team from the Municipal District Council will be calling to landowners who have ignored consistent calls for them to cut back ditches, trees and hedges going back over a number of years.

Cllr Hanafin, speaking at a meeting of the Thurles Templemore Municipal District Council, mentioned a number of areas where dangerous trees need to be cut back, including Tonagha and Turtulla in Thurles, and said that the council needs to find a way of ensuring tougher sanction on those who consistently ignore their letters to do something about their property.

Cllr Seamus Hanafin

“There are a number of people who have been written to over the last few years and the work still not has not been done. This is unacceptable and we need to be tougher,” Cllr Hanafin said.

District Engineer, Mr Thomas Duffy said that the council has to ensure that it goes through the correct process and he will be personally visiting landowners and impressing upon them the importance of cutting back dangerous trees and hedges.

The council does not wish to take people to court over these matters, he said, but if needs be they will, because a situation cannot be allowed to exist where individual landowners are putting the public at large, at risk.