Workers remove the roadside beech trees on Monday. Photo: Supplied / Josh Bailey
It was a giant blinking road sign that told Whiteman's Valley resident Josh Bailey time was up.
For the past two years, the Upper Hutt community of Katherine Mansfield Drive had been fighting to keep chainsaws away from a stand of beech trees, some of them more than 400 years old, threatened by a project to widen the road to improve safety of access to a new subdivision.
But as Bailey turned into the gravel road last Tuesday night, the glowing letters told him access would be closed for three days the following week.
And today, amid a heavy rain warning, the trees were chopped down.
A group of about 20 had gathered in the roadway to say goodbye on Sunday afternoon - to "spend some time with the trees a bit to say, 'These are things that have been long since there were people here, and tomorrow they'll be gone'."
Fourteen trees had been marked with a blue dot for removal - most living and a handful dead.
Bailey's own block of similar forest, which backed onto the roadside trees, was protected by a QEII covenant, and had twice been surveyed. Bailey said the results had shown a huge amount of unique biodiversity.
Residents and environmental advocates gathered on Sunday in a last ditch effort to bring attention to the plight of the trees which were removed the following day. Photo: Supplied
Those trees "aren't just fence posts, you can't just pop out a couple of them and there's no impact on the trees around them, they're part of a system," Bailey said. Even the dead trees were habitats for other species.
Amelia Geary from Forest and Bird said Sunday's gathering was a "last-ditch attempt" at getting a message to the council.
"There were really mixed feelings," she said. "A combination of people despairing the loss of the trees, but also, a lot of indignation at the terrible decision making at Upper Hutt City Council."
She had proposed a one-way system, similar to a one-lane bridge, but it was turned down.
But the council said the final road redesign was still a compromise.
All the black beech trees pictured here have been removed. Photo: Supplied / Jean Claude Stahl
Director of planning and regulatory services Helen Hamilton said the final road realignment plan had narrow shoulders, and added curves to save as many trees as possible.
Initially, three designs were considered, "one considering the minimum requirements in the Upper Hutt City Council Code of Practice for Civil Engineering Works and two alternatives that looked at reducing the standards to save additional trees".
"Following an independent Road Safety Audit, it was considered that the reduction in safety created by the alternative solutions was not acceptable."
She said there had already been one crash on this road so far. "If the road isn't widened, there is potential for more frequent and serious accidents."
Councillor Tracey Ultra said their loss was a disappointing outcome. The vote was held during the previous council term, and she suggested that had it been held today, more councillors might have voted to save the trees.
Although this battle was lost, Bailey said he hoped its legacy would do some good, with work planned to study the changes in the ecosystem after the trees' removal, to help inform future decisions.
Photographs had been taken of the trees and the forest as a whole, and monitoring would be ongoing to assess the effect of their loss.
