Perth Voice Interactive

MORE tree removals will be allowed at Mount Lawley Golf Club after a split vote from Stirling council endorsed the removal of another 41.

It’s also been revealed – after extensive questioning from determined residents – that the club has previously removed 22 trees without council approval.

The prestigious members-only club sits on 79 acres of state-owned A-Class Reserve vested with Stirling council. MLGC pays about $13,000 a year in rent, about half the market rate, and does not pay rates. 

In recent years the club has planted several thousand smaller low-lying endemic trees to restore degraded islands of remnant bushland areas set back from the playing field. 

But it’s the removal of some of the bigger, older trees lining the playing areas that has attracted concerted opposition in the past 18 months. 

Forage

Many of those are non-endemic to that part of WA, but Leisha Jack from the conservationist community group Stirling Urban Tree Network said at the May 30 council meeting “non-endemic trees on that site do provide food for black cockatoos and other animals that forage. 

“I have photographs, which I took myself, at the black cockatoo count this year. Black cockatoos, red tails, foraging in the non-endemic eastern states’ eucalyptus. I have lots of photographs of them foraging in the pines, which the City approved for them to remove.”

Stirling council officers have conceded the club has already removed 22 trees without approval, but staff said it was “ambiguous” as to whether they needed approval and mayor Mark Irwin said there would be no fines issues.

The club’s “Vegetation Management Plan” presented to councillors at the May 30 meeting requests permission to remove another 62 trees over the next two years to “deal with problematic vegetation negatively impacting bushland or golf playing areas”. Stirling staff advised that 41 of those removals can be supported and recommended councillors “work with the club in support of implementation of the plan”.

The vegetation management plan replaces an older draft masterplan that sought to remove some 600 trees over 10 years.

Mr Irwin is a big supporter of the club and disclosed an impartial interest in the item 

“as he has attended the club on numerous occasions”. He relinquished his spot chairing the meeting, then delivered an impassioned defence of the golf club from the floor.

“I still can’t really understand why this has become such a big issue,” Mr Irwin said of the extensive grilling the council’s received during public question time at many recent meetings.

“Personally I’ve had enough of this club being accused of doing something wrong. The club itself has done nothing wrong here,” Mr Irwin said, satisfied with the extensive new plantings of thousands of smaller trees and shrubs to replace the trees being removed.

“And now we’re hearing that’s not good enough because they’re not big enough. I mean give me a break, they’ve got to grow, they’ve got to grow. 

“All trees start as a small tree and grow into big trees.”

However none of the endemic species selected to replace the removed trees are likely to reach anywhere near the height of the non-endemic eucalypts which stretch from 20m to 25m tall.

Four councillors – Felicity Farrelly, David Lagan, Karlo Perkov and Lisa Thornton – voted against the item. 

A furious Cr Lagan said: “I may lose the vote here tonight but I won’t support it when we’ve been told by our own officers 22 trees were removed illegally. God knows how many more, but I know of 22-”

Mr Irwin interjected: “Point of order – there is no indication that they were removed illegally.”

Cr Lagan responded: 

“They were removed without permission… we have an officer who is supposed to give permission. What do we do with other leaseholders? Do we say you can remove any tree you want without permission?”

But the 41 new tree removals were endorsed by a majority of councillors: Andrea Creado, Michael Dudek, Tony Krsticevic, Suzanne Migdale, Teresa Olow, Stephanie Proud, Elizabeth Re, Bianca Sandri, and Mr Irwin.

Given what a council staffer described as “ambiguity” as to whether the club needed permission to remove trees, the councillors also voted for a clause saying “all future tree removal requests… [will] be determined by council’s tree delegate”.  

by DAVID BELL