Councilbust

Got something to get off your chest? If it’s not offensive, discriminatory of libellous (that means not true, or unproven) agrees with our terms of use, and makes grammatical sense, you could see it here! Send letters to councilbust@gmail.com, addressed, “Dear Madam”.

Don’t forget to put your name (or alias) and the area of Southend that you live in at the end of your letter, e.g. “John from Westcliff”.

29th January 2010

Dear Madam,

On early Sunday morning, having had a restless night’s sleep, something was wrong and my subconscious knew it. I rushed out and down to Victoria. Surely my mind has just been playing games with me, the council could not have sent workmen in the dead of night to cut the trees down; after all we had a meeting booked with the project manager for Tuesday afternoon to discuss the situation.

How wrong I was to underestimate just how underhanded and sneaky Southend Borough Council could be. The scene that greeted me when I rounded the bend was one of absolute devastation. The chainsaw gangs had been working through the early hours of the morning and were still furiously at their dirty business, the ground was saturated with police complete with the now obligatory forward surveillance unit and there were countless hired thugs acting as the council’s private security.

As I sat there shocked and feeling helpless. Tears came to my eyes. Huge 100 year old plane trees were being feed into the chippers like old unwanted sofas. The chainsaw armed operatives were actually dancing and singing as they ripped the heart out of my town. It is hard to imagine without being there how truly awful it was hearing the noise of the chainsaws and smelling the wood burning, it was truly sickening.

Then the anger took over; how dare they do this? We may not be able to stop this now, however, we certainly weren’t going to let this happened quietly; it was time to gather my strength and call for support. Making those calls to let people know what was happening was awful. Getting my friends out of bed early on a Sunday morning with such horrendous news felt like telling them someone had died.

It is not just the 60 trees of Victoria which are threatened by our out-of-control council. A further 18 are destined to face the chainsaws at Priory Priory/Crescent; trees that were so valiantly defended for four years by the hero’s of Camp Bling. Rest assure the council will not get to slaughter these trees.

Regards,

Mark

SKIPP

Greenpeace