A row of 200-year-old Newry oak trees is being cut down leaving a man who grew up playing under their branches devastated.
The mature trees at Greenbank Industrial Estate are being axed as part of NI flood defence work that will ultimately claim 426 trees across three schemes, including Belfast and Newcastle.
Pensioner Eamon Burke and others in the community have been campaigning for months to try and save the trees in Newry.
Read more: Belfast tidal flood alleviation meeting gets heated
They say the ‘shuck’ along which the row of 30 thrived for three lifetimes is not prone to flooding and that their pleas to spare them have fallen on deaf ears.
The 78-year-old said: “The Rivers Agency are adamant they are going to go ahead with this plan and that they are determined to take the trees down.
“I told them on Wednesday ‘I think I am banging my head off a stone wall’. The trees are coming down for no apparent reason.
“There was flooding in the Greenbank area eight years ago and where the flooding happened beyond the oak trees where the ground was on the low side. This is only a shuck - it’s not a river - and it’s table water that’s running into it.”
Eamon blames a fault with the sluice gates getting jammed with a barrel before the flood eight years ago.
He added: “They built this big metal defence wall but the problem was the water got in from the sea when the sluice gates weren’t working properly. I can’t get it through to them that if they had been working properly there wouldn’t have been any flooding.”
Fellow campaigner and local historian John McCabe, said: “We have learnt the oak trees are going to be cut down. We have tried our best... everyone has come together and we don’t want these trees cut down.
“I would make an appeal to John O’Dowd, the minister who is overseeing the final decision - could he please consider not cutting these trees down. For far too long, Ireland through colonialism was robbed of its trees, stripped of everything and these trees are very much Irish trees that’s left.
“It’s an Irish problem and John O’Dowd is a member of Sinn Fein, the MP in Newry & Armagh, Mickey Brady is a member of Sinn Fein and Newry & Mourne District Council is predominantly run by Sinn Fein.
“Sinn Fein have the power within themselves to stop this and I would just ask them and all the political representatives... why can we not all come together and please stop this?”
A spokesperson for the Department for Infrastructure said: “The removal of the trees is necessary to allow the construction and operation of a floodwall to provide effective protection to reduce the effects of flooding for businesses within the Greenbank Industrial Estate, Newry.
“We work in partnership with landowners and others on compensatory planting, if it is necessary to remove trees to facilitate the construction of flood defences.
“For all of our schemes, we endeavour to replace all of the trees we remove, with native species where possible.”
We asked why the trees in Newry are being felled when they are not in a tidal area.
DfI’s spokesman added: “Previous history of flooding is not the only determining factor in the need to provide flood alleviation measures as the Department uses predictive modelling techniques to identify flood risk.
“With regards to the Newry flood alleviation project, two separate design consultants with expert knowledge in flood risk management have independently identified the need for a flood barrier at this location to prevent flooding emanating directly from the Knox Peebles Drain and affecting the industrial estate and all the businesses who operate from that location.”
They did not respond to questions about the sluice gate.
READ MORE:
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