CAMPAIGNERS who staged two well publicised protests earlier this year to stop Cornwall Council felling three trees on a residential street have slammed the local authority after it announced it will still chop down the 60-year-old lime trees on Trelawney Road in Falmouth.

The council announced on Tuesday, July 15 that the trees will still have to come down. It said it had been unable to give the reasons why previously because of court proceedings.

The authority has now revealed that six separate services – including streetlight power cables, water pipes and internet cables – run beneath the footpath between a boundary wall and the trees, where they are tangled with tree roots. The surface of the road and the footway have also been disrupted by roots and kerbs have been removed because they were unsafe.

A spokesperson said options had been explored to retain the trees, but it was not possible. Due to continuing “serious damage” being caused by the roots, the council states there is no alternative but to cut them down. Four new trees will be planted on the street.

The council has not provided details of the court proceedings and, as a result, the Stop The Chop! campaigners say that “Cornwall Council’s determination to fell three protected trees on Trelawney Road in Falmouth, without providing a shred of independent, verifiable evidence that it’s necessary, suggests all street trees in Cornwall could be at risk”.

The group’s spokesperson, Debs Newman, said: “According to the statement this damage has been known about since alleged investigations took place in 2021 and 2022, so why hasn’t Cornwall Council provided evidence for this during the seven months that we’ve been asking for an explanation? And if it’s so ‘serious’, why did they not act on it immediately?

“Why only now, after there have been three failed attempts to fell the trees and two public protests during which people could’ve been hurt or arrested, are they claiming serious damage to services? Something doesn’t add up.”

She added: “Furthermore, Cornwall Council has yet to refute that they entered into an out of court settlement with a third party relating to the trees, which we’ve been told involved a six figure compensation payment. Has this influenced the council’s decision to fell?

“As it stands, Cornwall Council has still failed to provide any verifiable evidence for their claims that the trees are causing ‘serious damage’, or indeed that they have fully explored other means of nuisance abatement, and are instead continuing to hide behind the cited confidentiality of an out of court settlement, which is very convenient for them.”

Ms Newman warned: “What we all need to acknowledge is that if Cornwall Council gets away with felling these three healthy, protected trees without providing verifiable evidence for their claims as to why they need to be removed, then no street trees in Falmouth, across the whole of Cornwall or indeed across the entire country are safe.”