By chopping down healthy trees in Cleethorpes seafront conservation area, has North East Lincolnshire Council committed an offence?

The stump of one the felled whitebeam trees

                                                      

DOZENS of trees have been felled in Cleethorpes central seafront conservation area in readiness for work to start on a new amenity building.

The trees, most of them healthy whitebeams of longstanding, had been growing on the perimeter of Pier Gardens behind where the Waves pub one stood.

In autumn and winter, their berries provided a precious food sources for blackbirds and other songbirds.

In giving the go-ahead for the destruction, North East Lincolnshire Council may have breached its own rules on destroying trees within conservation areas.

The text states: "Anyone who cuts down, uproots, tops, lops, wilfully destroys or wilfully damages a tree in a conservation area without giving notice will be guilty of an offence."

In recent weeks, the council has also destroyed a nearby buddleia hedgerow plus a privet maze and an unusual spiral conifer opposite The Knoll.

It is not known if either the council's ecology officer or its trees officer were consulted in advance of the most recent felling activity.

However, in a comment made in February four years ago, NELC's trees officer Paul Chaplin wrote: "I do not consider these trees to be important arboricultural features."

The council's recent programme of destroying trees and shrubs on Cleethorpes seafront is likely to come under the spotlight at a meeting of the tourism scrutiny panel later this month.  

Gone - until last month, a row of trees one stood on this land behind the works depot of the beach safety team 

The felled trees formerly provided a feeding, nesting and roosting habitat for songbirds