I Think That I Shall Never See Anything As Lovely As A Tree...

Thanks to some detective work I now know who did complain about our trees.

Says one thing and does something else.

Other neighbours have noted that his garden is not in shade and gets daylight practically all the time so to say light in his garden is reduced is untrue.

When talking to me the other day he suggested complaints about our trees could be via his neighbours(but he started to complain about another tree which is well away from his garden)

I said(not really wanting it to happen...)If our trees have to come out or be reduced to 8"feet that should be the rule for all properties rented from our HA.

I have found out that a tenant has been told that her tree has to come out altogether, so it looks as though many properties around the area are going to be affected.

This one...




I cannot help but wonder as he mentioned that tree, if he has complained and in doing so brought it to the HA's attention. That has to be supposition on my part and that cannot be proven. It remains a suspicion. Well it would after all that has happened.

As it is so far from any property, seems good and strong and no one has complained, even I don't see why the HA is pressing for it to be removed. Chances are as the tenant is elderly she'll probably go along with it because you can do without the hassle and probably worried that if you make a stand you will be threatened in some way.

When we were unavailable as the tree survey took place, we would phone to tell them give us time to get to the door, come on an afternoon, they'd knock so quietly that you'd miss them or sometimes you'd get to the door and find them leaving and you'd be waving frantically to get their attention. If you phoned the office those you had to speak to were out and so on.

And yet when someone did visit to arrange again for the company to call to carry the work out I was told, "Well if this had continued it would affect your tenancy!" If that's not a threat I don't know what is. And every time they talk about the trees even if we are dealing with the requests, they keep putting on all cards that come through the door "Urgent" as if a few weeks or a month or two will make a difference.

Also, I now know that when they said "Some" complaints had been made...it would appear that there was only one.

Someone suggested getting together with others in a similar situation(Strength in numbers)but I don't know who are in a similar position.

If the story could get into a newspaper, the broadcasting media or be looked into by an MP it might be interesting to see where this would go. Perhaps people would make their voices heard as one be able to reverse the rule or a compromise of some kind could be reached but initially someone would have to go public being a kind of whistle blower.

At a time when the environment is so important this seems to be reversing the trend.