Officers cut manners

UGLY JOB: Helen Heath had trees lopped and is angry at council for taking photos without her permission.

Alistar Brightman

THEY called it an “ugly job” but Hervey Bay’s Helen Heath said it was the actions of two council officers last week that deserved that title, not the tree lopping they were inspecting.

The former teacher from Wondunna says primary school students have better manners than Fraser Coast council compliance officers who visited her Maree Street home after she had several trees in her yard cut back to make way for solar roof panels.

The trees were cut back by controversial company All Queensland Tree Services last Thursday and while Ms Heath said she “couldn’t have been happier” with the job, the council officers weren’t so thrilled.

Within half an hour of the tree loppers leaving, two female officers arrived at Ms Heath’s home.

The council’s community and development director, Peter Smith, said the officers went to the home after receiving a complaint about the company cutting back the trees without permission.

Ms Health says she didn’t make the complaint and the council officers spent more than an hour at her home inspecting the trees and asking why she hadn’t asked permission for them to be cut.

She says she told them she wasn’t aware she had to ask permission as the trees weren’t on any protected lists and that although the officers said the tree lopper had done an “ugly job” they would take no further action.

She says the officers then asked her for the details of the tree lopper but that when she told them her husband would have to call them later, they couldn’t provide any council identification.

“They couldn’t even produce a business card or anything,” Ms Heath said

“They wrote their details down on a piece of notepad paper.”

According to Ms Heath her husband did phone the officers with the details and was again assured that no further action would be taken so she was surprised when she saw two more officers taking photos of her property the following Monday.

“I was livid when I saw them there,” Ms Heath said

“I admit I yelled at them because I just thought it was so disgusting that they could come and take photos without permission.

“I’m just really annoyed about the way the council has gone about it.

“If no further action was going to be taken then why did they need to take pictures?”

Mr Smith painted a different picture yesterday.

He said the officers who visited the property on the first day were wearing council identification tags and that they wanted to “ensure that residents were aware of the applicable laws and how they applied to trees on private property for future reference”.

He said an officer and an arborist took photos of trees to file as part of an investigation into the standard of tree pruning in the area and that the only time they stepped on to the Heaths’ property was to apologise for not telling the owners before they started.