Sharon Webb

A large English sycamore tree that has been spreading misery among some Deloraine residents is no more.

The tree on a Housing Tasmania easement in East Barrack Street was cut down in July with the permission of Housing Minister Michael Ferguson.

Neighbours Diane Greenway and Douglas Bignell said they were grateful for the tree’s removal.

‘We’re relieved and overjoyed really to think of all the time it’s taken for our requests to come to fruition,’ Diane said.

‘It will take a year or two to deal with the final seedlings coming up but now we’ll be able to get our garden back to what we wanted.

‘We’ve held off planting things because of the time it has taken us to deal with sycamore seedlings.’

Douglas Bignell drew a big breath and said, ‘It feels like being released from prison. It’s a relief the tree is down. We couldn’t keep up the work we needed to deal with sycamore seedlings in our garden.’

Diane and Douglas are retired and have been fighting bureaucracy over the tree since 2011, shortly after they bought their Deloraine Federation era house and moved from Melbourne to live in it.

Each year they and their neighbours have been met by a barrage of seedlings from the prolific sycamore, which is regarded as ‘a common environmental weed’ by DPIPWE.

The seedlings that grew from the tree’s winged seeds sprouted by the thousands in garden beds, under hedges, in pavement gaps and even in house guttering and down pipes.

Housing Tasmania replaced all the pavers in one unit’s courtyard because it was ruined by seedlings. Diane and Douglas had stopped putting down mulch because it encourages seedlings.

For years Housing Tasmania repeatedly quoted an arborist’s report saying the tree was ‘historic’ and refused to remove it.

After years of fruitless emails and meetings with the staff of local MP Guy Barnett, in April Roger Jaensch (then Housing Minister) agreed to consider removing it. Then came the May state election and a new Housing Minister.

Diane and Douglas sent more letters and a copy of the Gazette’s story about the tree, and eventually received a reply from Mr Ferguson that Housing Tasmania was awaiting a Meander Valley Council permit to remove it.

He wrote to them, ‘I have referred the matter to Housing Tasmania … in light of concerns raised by the neighbours. 

‘I trust this will be a relief to you and your neighbours.’

Diane Greenway and Douglas Bignell, along with neighbours Ted Carter, Jenny McBain, Laura and Graham Window and others, certainly agree.