BACK on November 3, 2005, the Barry & District News published a photograph along with my letter that commented on the state of the trees in Claude Road, after the council had pollarded them in 2001. The trees were cut back during their ‘growing cycle’, which was the absolutely worst time of year to complete any pollarding. Several trees died and others struggled to recover.

A few weeks ago the council came again to pollard the remaining trees and I wrote a letter to the paper (January 26) asking if the council would remove the ivy which had grown to such an extent that it had killed one tree and was restricting the growth of several others.

Well, I would like to let readers know that the council did return – but instead of removing the ivy, they chopped down another four trees, only one of which was dead.

The beautiful avenue of trees in Claude Road has now been totally destroyed by the poor management and lack of knowledge of council officials. What on earth did they think they were doing?

And just in case the council bring out their standard ‘old chestnut’ reply (sorry about the pun) – ‘oh, the trees were diseased, dangerous, causing subsidence, health and safety issues, a conker might fall on a child’s head and injure them blah, blah, blah’ – there was nothing wrong with the trees until the council got their hands on them. Not only are mature trees in full foliage beautiful to look at, they also absorb carbon dioxide from our polluted town and give out oxygen in return for all of us to breathe.

This council is destroying (at a very alarming rate) one of the few things that can improve our lives by cleaning the air that surrounds us.

If the way they deal with overgrowth of ivy is to chop down the trees – please don’t come back to finish the job. Incompetent, overpaid, and totally useless. H Spierling Claude Road Barry