Earlier this week, one of my colleagues at Inner West Council, Clr Colin Hesse, spoke to Jeff Angel from Total Environment Centre about the worrying increase in tree removal activity in our area since Inner West Council's controversial new Tree DCP was introduced in February 2020. Have a listen.

Here are the figures Clr Hesse was referring to in the start of his interview, which show how tree removal activity has increased in 2020 compared to the same periods  2018 and 2019 since the Tree DCP was introduced. (Note that June 2020 approvals are low due to it being the most recent month; 63 of the 104 applications received were still yet to be determined when these figures were produced.)

For more background on how this came to be, check out the following stories by Megan Gorrey in The Sydney Morning Herald:

Tree removals surge in Sydney's inner west under council clearing policy (17 August 2020)

'Tree massacre': Inner West councillors' warning after 'ambush' (28 August 2019)

Or watch my Inner West Council Recap from August 2019:

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