Date published: 2009/05/26
The local and European elections of course bring out electioneering by the political parties. In Arbury, at least, the Lib Dems deliver far more leaflets than the other political parties combined. Evidently they want to bludgeon the voters into submission.
Their latest "Cambridge Herald" newsletter claims that the "Lib Dems fight for more city trees":
Trees are being felled across Cambridge but the Lib Dems are fighting to preserve them.
Following Addenbrooke's decision to take the axe to a line of cherry trees and the County Council's sudden removal of trees at the railway station, Cambridge Lib Dems are trying to stop or slow down the removal of healthy trees.
The Lib Dems have launched a protocol which the City Council will follow, which will ensure that local residents get plenty of time to object to any proposed tree felling.
This is about as dishonest an article as could be written, and it is amazing that the Lib Dems are not embarrassed to be seen publishing such blatantly misleading information. Yes, the removal of trees at Addenbrooke's and the railway station was bad. But by far and away the biggest killer of trees in Cambridge is the city council, run by (surprise) the Lib Dems. So in the past year the city council has massacred trees at Byron's Pool, Hobson's Conduit, Parker's Piece, and elsewhere.
The article mentions a "protocol", by which presumably they mean the proposed council tree works consultation. One thing the city bureaucrats are good at is producing Word documents, and this latest consultation (about consultation) is quite typical.
First of all, this "protocol" completely misses the issue at hand. What the city really needs is a tree department which has some interest in looking after the trees of Cambridge. Unfortunately the current tree department, given their recent action, is not to be trusted with the trees of Cambridge. That is the real issue. Having consultations in which members of the public can waste hours and days trying to force the city bureaucrats to behave is not a substitute for having city bureaucrats behaving sensibly in the first place.
The Lib Dems run the city. They seem to be either unwilling or incapable of controlling the actions of the tree department. If it is the former then the Lib Dems should not be claiming they are "fighting to preserve" trees. If it is the latter then there is something deficient in Cambridge city democracy. Ultimately the bureaucrats should be held accountable to the politicians, and hence to the voters.
The second problem with the "protocol" is that it seems intended to bypass most of the citizens of Cambridge. So what the city should do is set up an email list which anybody can sign up to, and if and when a tree consultation needs to take place, then everyone on that list is sent an email with further information (e.g. pointing to a webpage with details of the proposal). Instead what we get is a suggestion that the city send letters (more dead trees) to interested parties, but the definition of interested party is extremely narrow. So someone is deemed to be an interested party only if they happen to live next to where the trees are going to be destroyed, or if they happen to belong to one of a select list of special interest pressure groups (e.g. Friends of the Earth), as if everybody else in Cambridge has no interest in trees in public places.
It is rather ironic that the city council gets completely over the top hysterical at the thought that some school kids playing under a not significant tree might damage the tree, but meanwhile kills hundreds of trees for no great reason.
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