SOUTH FREMANTLE residents have been left to grapple with whether a safer walk to the beach is worth the loss of two iconic Norfolk Island pines and other street trees.

The pines are flagged for removal under a Fremantle council plan to improve South Terrace for pedestrians, which Main Roads says will only work if the trees are removed to improve sightlines.

For local resident Hayley Parker O’Toole, the issue has become deeply personal after she connected the trees to her family’s long local history, while she believes engineers could work harder to find a solution that improves safety without losing so many trees.

“There’s a street in Beaconsfield named after my great-great-grandfather, Ted Lewington, honoured in historical records for planting thousands of trees across Perth in the late 1800s, including the Norfolk Island Pines still standing on the Rockingham foreshore,” Ms Parker O’Toole said.

“He was a fisherman, but he had a job with the road department in the late 1800s, and the reason the street had been named after him was that he had planted hundreds, maybe thousands of trees across the metro area.”

Ms Parker O’Toole says there’s no way of telling if her forebear was responsible for their planting, but notes that two of his sons lived on Duoro Road, so he certainly hung around the area.

• Hayley Parker O’Toole and daughter Elodie. Photo by Hayley Parker O’Toole

“These two trees are 118 years old. They predate the car. They survived two world wars and a Great Depression.”

At a council meeting this week, she also questioned whether removal was justified on safety grounds, saying a safety audit seemed to assume people would scurry straight across the street rather than stopping at the half-way median strip to check traffic heading the other way. 

If they did stop, she says there’d be no problem with the road’s sightlines.

Ms Parker O’Toole had signed a petition from the local Towns Team calling for better pedestrian crossings, but believes it has now been “weaponised” to justify the current plan.

“And I know that because I got a text from the town team people saying, please oppose the removal of the trees.

“The onus of proof is on Main Roads or the council to show that it’s not safe versus being on the community to show that it is safe.”

Public question time at this week’s council meeting also focused on how consultation data is being interpreted.

Lehani Williams said despite consultation indicating most people were crossing the roundabout on the eastern side, the council’s plan seemed to be pushing them further west.

“If design lines are the route people take most naturally and frequently, why is pedestrian traffic being shifted from naturally occurring eastern desire lines to the lesser used west,” she asked.

“Is this wise when we have only had one pedestrian minor crash at the roundabout over the last five years?” 

Environmental

Brendan Verrier raised environmental concerns.

“If we just keep ripping some big, giant trees from these areas, is that going to impact birds locally,” he said, noting that as a trail runner he’d seen habitat destruction that seemed to be pushing more black tailed cockatoos into urban areas.

He asked whether there had been an environmental impact assessment over the potential loss of trees, but was told there hadn’t.

Mayor Ben Lawver said the proposal remains under consultation and responds to community requests for safer crossings.

“Let me just start by saying that it’s still open for consultation until June 30, so people should let us know their thoughts on the proposed plan.

“The fact of the matter is that it was residents of South Fremantle that brought this to our attention; that we needed safe pedestrian crossings, both on South Terrace and at the Duouro Road roundabout.”

He said Main Roads requirements are shaping the design outcomes.

“Main Roads has told us that they want to see, especially the western crossing, all those trees in the median chopped down.”

“But I don’t think all those trees need to go.”

Mr Lawver said to create the crossings, some parking bays would inevitably be lost as well.

by STEVE GRANT