Summit Road pines over boundary line

Press, 28 May 1983, Page 6

Summit Road pines over boundary line

The early removal of young pine trees planted too close to Dyers Pass Road may be sought by the Canterbury United Council. The regional planning committee on Wednesday will receive a recommendation on the trees from the Summit Road Advisory Committee.

The pines are part of a Cashmere Valley plantation started by the McVicar Timber Group. Some of the trees are inside the line, 30 metres below the road, which bounds the area under the Summit Road Protection Act.. Mr E. P. Maguire, the United Council secretary, said that the recommendation might be seeking “fairly prompt removal” of those trees. When trees within the protected area grew, they could obstruct traditional views from the road, critics have said.

Commercial pine planting jroposals for the Port Hills lave stirred controversy

among those who want to see only native vegetation, or low-growing plants, on the hills. “The Port Hills were never completely covered in trees, only shaded valleys and areas where adequate shelter and soil depth allowed,” said Mr J. W. Jameson, president of the Summit Road Society, in a letter to “The Press” this week. Mr Jameson said that those opposed to large-scale commercial forestry on the hills had failed because of the “weaknesses of the district schemes and lack of consultation at all levels.”

But the public should be assured that the Heathcote County District Scheme at present prevented a repetition of forestry “on the magnitude of this tragic plantation” in the Cashmere Valley, he said.

He hoped the timber company would display “a generous attitude” toward fringe landscaping of the plantation partly to lower its visual impact.