Council to break new ground with 'tree policy' for Westmeath

Westmeath County Council is looking at developing a 'tree planting policy' but it is finding it difficult to find other areas which have undertaken a similar process.

"We haven't been able to find a policy from a comparable county so we're going to have to try and generate one in our own right," Jonathan Deane, senior engineer, told members of the council's Environment, Climate Action, Water and Emergency Services SPC in Mullingar recently.

PHOTO: Green Party councillor Hazel Smyth, from Mullingar.

"The best example we have out there from other local authorities is actually from South Dublin County Council which went through a major exercise about two years ago to generate a tree planting policy but it's not really comparable to Westmeath County Council: they are far more urban than ourselves."

Mr Deane said that the SPC would be involved in the decision; possibly also a sub-committee; there would be public consultation and he expected that the entire process could take as much as a year.

"And then we will end up with the document which should be able to direct all parts of Westmeath County Council on how to deal with future tree planting and it will be a framework for the rest of the local authority and the community."

Director of services Martin Murray indicated that devising this policy would take more work than people might actually imagine: "There is no national document that we can 'copy', so the process as outlined by Jonathan is that we really have to be the first out of the block here in terms of a rural county developing a tree replacement and tree planting policy.

"So it is going to take quite a while: we're going to have to engage with stakeholders such as Coillte; consider the IFA; consider landowners; consider our own parks; consider the rural environment we are currently operating in; consider land use and land ownership. So it's quite an extensive piece of work - much more than people might have envisaged," he stated.

SPC member Jack O'Sullivan commented that he was delighted to see that Westmeath was about to have a good tree planting policy.

"I can understand there may be no other similar tree planting policies for any other county in Ireland but when you are drafting, look at what other countries are doing; what other municipalities are doing; because one of the things about municipalities in Europe is when it comes to climate change I find it it is actually municipalities that are leading the way and are ahead of governments," Mr O'Sullivan said.

Cllr Hazel Smyth said she would be happy to share with the SPC information she has from other Green Party representatives who work with the global Green Party on these types of plans.

Cllr Smyth also raised the issue of trees being removed.

"We need to be more robust: we need to really think about how we deal with people who either are destroying trees or cutting down trees and how we monitor that and how we protect the trees that we do have in Westmeath," she said.

Cllr Smyth said the council should also consider becoming more ambitious with regard to afforestation around Westmeath and to think about possibility of undertaking some tree planting on on publicly owned lands.