“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”
Albert Einstein
One of the most attractive features of the quiet little street I live on are the gorgeous cherry blossom trees that bring colour, fragrance and beauty each year with their magical flowers.
Returning home at the end of the day you forget in an instant dodging the local drug dealers racing around our streets as if it were Monaco. Quite literally they light up life albeit for a few months.
My house is a hundred years old this year and the three trees -planted by Bradford Council – had just turned thirty so I am told. Not any more as now we only have two left due to our utterly brainless and incompetent council.
I woke up Monday morning to the sound of the tree outside my house being felled. There had been no warning nor any consultation with residents and the tree was down in a minute. Even the perpetrators looked bewildered.
This was an act of petty and mindless vandalism, done in a way that sums up most of the dealings of our council; underhand, without consultation and with little to enhance the image of where we live.
The chainsaw wielding clowns in orange jumpsuits suggested it was lifting the tarmac; so what? Hapless Hinchcliffe and her useless cronies leading our city down the pan daily lift my blood pressure, yet I don’t take a chainsaw to them!
They whine on about spending cuts yet how much to cut down a perfectly good tree and send a wagon to tarmac over the evidence? Repeat that across the district and for what? Picture council jobsworths eagerly spending budgets to prove their worth.
It is frustrating for any Bradfordian to see the incompetence at City Hall that has brought our City to the status of a national laughing stock. Harder still outside your home.
They claimed that the tree was a “hazard” but to who? Here is the answer obtained by our local councillor.
“The issue of tree root damage at this location was reported to myself by our Highway Safety Inspection team (they really inspect cul-de-sacs?) dated 12 December 2016. I subsequently asked the councils Arboricultural Officer to remove the tree so that the council could reinstate the footway and kerbs accordingly.
Irrespective of the possible low footfall at this location (that will be me you moron), this decision was made due to safety implications and the councils liability in these instances.
The council do not usually inform residents of its proposals of this nature as we do not really have much of a choice in these instances.” Bob Priestley, Highway Maintenance.
They supplied a picture showing this threat to life that we residents appear to have been oblivious to making it sound as if we were living next to an Iraqi minefield.
Note the number of council departments involved here too; that’s where they need a bloody chainsaw. Yet when I tried to call them I was deflected by the multi-choice Piss Off switchboard to the Dunno Dept, the It Ain’t Us Dept and eventually to the Who Gives A Stuff Dept headed by Highway Bob.
Eventually I got hold of Highway and it was hard not to believe I had disturbed his afternoon nap. Ridiculously he claimed the pavement was not safe to walk on but any observation by someone with at least a morsel of a brain would have detected this was not Oxford Street.
He then asked me what I would have done which was incredible as the tree was now down so it might have been helpful to ask first.
Having staggered home frequently over the last eleven years, not once have I tripped up and thought of a claim based on a bloody tree!
“It were t’tree’s fault M’Lud! Nowt to do wi gallon of Black Sheep I ‘ad at Scruffy! Chop the bastard down and gimme me kompensashun cheque marked Stoopid Fooker! Allus fancied a 96 inch widescreen anyway! Nice one!”
Indeed, the tree has often been my guide so if I do end up on my arse one weekend, maybe I should sue the idiots for removing my human right to a tree pointing the way home?
This is a council that is supposedly pursuing a clean air agenda but cuts down trees and proposes an incinerator down the Aire Valley.
And for one so worried about the so-called compensation culture, how predictable that they further demonstrate their idiocy and hypocrisy – courtesy of their leader the hopeless Hapless – in this article.
Handing out more benefits is the ultimate example of the compensation culture. Sit at home, switch on Jeremy Kyle and all on your lovely council; just remember to vote for us!
Only today I got a reply from Councillor Sarah Ferriby (Environment, Sport & Culture Portfolio – Sport…really?) which was predictably hopeless, simply repeating the same drivel from Highway. And she had a minion type it!
Almost a week on I remain livid at their arrogance and contempt for us as residents. As for the future of the remaining trees, based on the same idiotic logic, what next?
Finally, whilst watching the US series Billions set in New York I noted the trees there have small iron railings to stop the local drunks (me) falling over those nasty tree roots that clearly terrify Bradford Council.
Note to Highway Bob…do some research i.e. cost comparison??? Committed neighbours might even be persuaded to pay for these…now that’s creative thinking!
Footnote – if like me you don’t like to see the idiots get off lightly please share this post via social media, word of mouth or pigeon!
One Hundred Years Ago
When perhaps there were fewer idiots ih hi-viz jackets roaming our streets.
Have a great weekend and watch out for nutters with chainsaws.
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