Back again with another Monday Message Board.
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The sound of chainsaws and the sight of a very big crane shocked me a couple of days ago in Seven Hills where I live. There they were cutting a perfect beautiful Eucalyptus molluccana (an endemic tree thats found on the Cumberland Plains of western Sydney. This tree that I have seen for about 40 years stood on Ellam Drive on the footpath on this main road in the area. It had been a home to many birds and was just standing there ‘cleaning the air that we all share’. The tree was about 80 years. It was a healthy tree and Blacktown council cut it down, it took a couple of hours. Most locals hated this tree because whenever the wind blew they thought it would fall down. Its been there for a long time, it was healthy. This was an act of total vandalism. Blacktown council is not a ‘green’ council and even our few parks and reserves are neglected by the this council. Our rates are also very high some of the highest in the country and we really don’t get much for it. The council is a mixture of Labour, Liberal and a few independents. There are no Greens. Greens are also hated in this area. Western Sydney becomes a ‘heat Island’ in summer and temperatures reach up into the 40’s, but locals don’t really care and don’t even know this. Western Sydney is a basin and a pollution trap. Building Badgerys creek airport will be the last nail in the coffin. People are been kept the the dark about this pollution guzzler. They have cleared 1180 hectres of Cumberland plains woodlnd to build this monster airport. We have only 6 percent real bushland left. This council is also building far too many flats ( as I call them) in the area. They are building the new slum suburbs. Another monster they want to built is an incinerator. Thats another story. It’s total madness and greed and ‘developorous ravenous’ (greedy developers), corrupt politicians and councillors have been very busy destroying what is really our heritage and our children’s. But who cares about Heritage. My two children have left the area and will never come back to western Sydney. I am glad about that. I cannot afford to move. Western Suburbs becoming the new slums of tomorrow. Sonia Bennett.