You may notice some work happening in Tenterfield Park over the coming weeks as Council crews begin removing trees that died during the 2017-2020 drought.
Tenterfield Park is a high-visitation area, popular dog-walking park and a bird-watching park. Within this parkland, several large trees unfortunately perished due to extended drought conditions and now pose a threat to community members’ safety, as well as an increased fire risk for neighbouring properties.
Prior to any works beginning, Tenterfield Shire Council engaged Birdwing Ecological Services to complete a flora and fauna assessment in Tenterfield Park. As a result of this assessment, trees which form groups of habitat trees along with trees of living overstory/midstory vegetation have been marked and will not be removed.
Next week the burning of the dead tree piles within Tenterfield Park will take place to reduce vermin activity.
The dead tree removal project in Tenterfield Park is grant funded under the Black Summer Bushfire Recovery Program, in which Council was fortunate to receive funding to recover and rebuild following the 2019-2020 bushfires.
In the Extraordinary Council Meeting held on 11 August 2021, Council resolved that a small portion of this funding would go to removing the affected trees, to ensure the danger of falling trees and excess fuel is removed from community land and to help mitigate the increased fire risk to bordering residential properties.
Keep an eye out for further updates regarding the dead tree removal project in Tenterfield Park in the coming weeks.