One of the giant Redwood trees on the Far North District Council-owned reserve adjacent to Kerikeri Retirement Village collapsed in high winds today, crushing one of the Village’s gardening sheds and narrowly missing a young gardener who was in the shed at the time. He ran out of the shed as he heard the loud cracking sound made by the falling tree, which demolished the building seconds later.
The Village has filed a report with WorkSafe, classifying the incident as a “near fatality”.
Chief executive Hilary Sumpter said the employee was shaken, but safe and well.
“If he’d hesitated for just a few seconds, though, it could have been a completely different outcome,” she said. “We would all be in deep grief instead of being simply angry and infuriated, as we are now, that our warnings to Council about just such a scenario have been ignored and brushed away for more than a decade.”
The Village has petitioned both the Bay of Islands - Whangaroa Community Board, and Council leadership and staff directly, on many occasions to have the Redwoods removed and replaced with native and fruit trees.
In a letter to Council in October 2022, the Kerikeri Retirement Village Ltd Board wrote:
“This letter serves to place on record, once again, our Board’s deep concern at Council’s reluctance to take the steps we believe are necessary to protect our residents from injury or worse should one or more of these towering, exotic trees shed a branch or collapse in its entirety.
“We maintain that any liability arising from such an event lies squarely with Council and that Council carries this risk.”
In the letter, the Board took issue with Council staff’s assessment, based on an arborist’s report following the felling of six trees for examination, that the trees were not sufficiently decayed to warrant removal.
“We are concerned that the felled trees did not accurately display the degree of decay we believe to be present in these trees,” the Board wrote. “When we felled six of them on our apartment site a few years ago the predicted excellent timber turned out to be rotten throughout.”
Some years ago a large branch from one of the neighbouring Redwoods fell directly into a vacant room in the Village’s Robinson hospital wing. Another weighty branch fell onto a resident’s parked, and unoccupied, car.
“Counting today’s close call, that’s now three cases of ‘fortunately’,” Ms Sumpter said. “But when will our luck, and Council’s, run out?”
Addressing Council directly on social media today, the Village called for immediate action.
“Now, please - for the love of all that is holy – take our warnings and concerns seriously, remove your hazardous trees and replace them with a mix of native and citrus trees.”
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