Alexandra Park: Tree felling resumes at protest site, 8th Feb

Alexan­dra Park: Tree felling resumes at protest site
Tree felling in Alexan­dra Park, Whal­ley Range Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil said it would not be deflect­ed from its plans

Tree felling has resumed at a Man­ches­ter park where activists climbed trees to pre­vent the clear­ance.

The felling was pre­vent­ed last week when up to 70 peo­ple got into Alexan­dra Park, Whal­ley Range, on Thurs­day.

The pro­test­ers set up a camp and a num­ber of them scaled trees in the park.

A Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil spokesman said it would not be deflect­ed from its plans and legal action may be tak­en against the tree climbers.

Pro­tes­tor Ian Brew­er con­firmed some demon­stra­tors were still up trees but added: “There are not enough peo­ple at the camp, it is very dis­ap­point­ing.

“We’ve had good sup­port with our peti­tion but we need more peo­ple at the camp.”

The coun­cil intends to fell 280 trees as part of a £5.5m project to return the park to the way it is sup­posed to have looked in Vic­to­ri­an times.
Raised flowerbeds

The author­i­ty said only 10% of the park’s trees were being felled and local peo­ple have said they do not feel safe in the park.

But pro­test­ers claim the the actu­al num­ber of trees to be cut down is more than 400.

The trees are being removed and replaced by raised flowerbeds as part of the regen­er­a­tion of the park.

The plans also include cre­at­ing new ten­nis courts and foot­ball facil­i­ties and improve­ments to the lake.

More than 2,000 peo­ple have signed an online peti­tion oppos­ing the felling of trees in the project, which received £2.2m from the Her­itage Lot­tery Fund.

Eamonn O’Rourke, head of com­mu­ni­ties and cul­ture for Man­ches­ter City Coun­cil, said: “The actions of a small, noisy band of pro­test­ers have been hold­ing up much-need­ed improve­ments to the park which have wide­spread pub­lic sup­port and indeed all the evi­dence from our ongo­ing con­ver­sa­tions with local peo­ple sug­gest that the major­i­ty are behind the plans.“
Coun­cil plans for park The coun­cil said peo­ple did not feel safe in the park

Tim Cooke, from Hulme, who is also protest­ing against the tree felling, said: “It’s not improv­ing the park — it is destroy­ing the park by dec­i­mat­ing a third of the trees.

“I would under­stand it if they were dis­eased but they are cut­ting down per­fect­ly healthy trees.”

Greater Man­ches­ter Police con­firmed a woman was arrest­ed on Fri­day on sus­pi­cion of aggra­vat­ed tres­pass.

She was not charged but giv­en a police cau­tion.