Sign in. It’s quick, free and it’s up to you.
An account is an optional way to support the work we do. Find out more.
A REPORT HANDED to a local council in Northern Ireland has advised that eleven trees are felled in the Dark Hedges, an avenue of trees known as a filming location in Game of Thrones.
Six of the trees are under a Tree Preservation Order (TPO), which is issued to protect certain trees in cases where their removal would be likely to have a significant impact on the local environment and the public’s enjoyment of it.
The consent of the Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council is required before felling or pruning a tree under a TPO in the area, with the council’s planning committee convening today.
In a statement, the planning committee said:
“The Planning Committee at its meeting held on 25 October, 2023 resolved to agree to the felling of 1 Tree Preservation Order (TPO) tree and encourage further discussion on mitigation works to other trees.”
The trees, of which there are 86 in total, are nearly 250 years old and are mostly categorised as being in poor to fair condition, which is considered to be expected due to their age.
The Dark Hedges are an “exceptional landscape feature which have high public amenity value and tourist interest”, the document prepared for councillors outlines.
The Beech trees are believed to have been planted around 1775 and to have featured roughly 150 trees at the time.
“Over the years, whilst gracing the local landscape, the Beech trees have declined in number through natural causes and various storms, not helped by the exposed location and linear planting form, to the current number of 86 trees,” it says.
The remaining trees are almost 250 years old and “may be considered to be Over Mature for Beech trees and coming towards the end of their expected Life Cycle”.
An arboriculturist surveyed all 86 trees on the site, 49 of which are under a TPO, and found that 60% (52) of the trees were in poor condition and 38% in fair condition.
The arboriculturist advised that the trees show many health and structural issues that are common in maturing Beech trees.
“With the site being a popular tourist attraction, as well as used by local traffic, there is concern over the potential of tree failure and risk of harm in relation to a number of identified trees,” the document says.
The report has identified “six TPO trees and 5 non-TPO trees (11 trees in total) in poor condition with a current risk to the public that require removal”.
Remedial pruning works have been proposed for most of the remaining trees but they are largely expected to have a life expectancy of at least another ten years.
“The context of the site, with the daily public and tourist interactions within the Dark Hedges is an important consideration and the issues raised in the report regarding health and safety concerns in association with potentially dangerous and structurally compromised trees are considered to be valid,” the council has been told.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Northern Ireland’s Department of Infrastructure said that the department “recognises the value of all roadside trees of these trees in particular and acknowledges the need for robust evidence to justify any intervention”.
“The Department has a legal and moral obligation to act when public safety is at risk and takes this duty very seriously – in this case the Department is continuing to liaise with the landowners and local stakeholders to determine the next course of action as a matter of urgency.”
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
Use the speed vans in correct locations; where danger exists from speeding / dangerous roads etc and not just as a revenue collection mechanism as it appears to be.
The logic is very simple. Somebody who ignores the rules on one road will ignore the rules elsewhere. Try to catch as many such people by being on the roads used the most.
If speed vans in remote locations you just won’t catch people. As for revenue generating as far as know it doesn’t make a profit therefore doesn’t generate revenue.
There is one rule that I will not obay, and never have. That’s haven to drive all the way around a lane hogger. Why should I have leave the driving lane and change lanes 4 or maybe 6 times and put my and other drivers lives at a much higer risk?
Just to remind you red thumbs. As in the UK it is NOT a legal requirement to take the long route around one who is breaking the rule of lane hogging on motorways!
Don’t blame me for the logic they use.
That’s a common misconception about the UK. You can’t undertake unless it’s within the ebb and flow of congestion. Rule 268.
https://www.gov.uk/motorways-253-to-273/overtaking-267-to-269
One third of the drivers killed weren’t wearing their seat belt means two third of those killed were wearing it and still got killed?
100% correct. They should also warn people of an upcoming speed van as people slamming on brakes as soon as they see it can be a hazard!! As yous ay it should be about saving lives not collecting revenue
Shawn.. just because your impatient breaking the rules of the road is not an excuse,.. Rogue.. yes it does but possibly means another 1/3 could have been prevented
They do warn drivers of an upcoming speed van, it’s a fixed camera sign on the side of the road.
Niall, You are wrong. Rule 268 uses the words “do not”. If you read the introduction to the highway code it says that do/do not, should/should not are only advisory wordings. For something to be a legal requirement the words “must/must not” have to be used.
Shawn you are wrong about that, as there is an offence created for it.
weaving in and out of traffic, maybe if it was carried out dangerously, same applies for overtaking in that manner. Simply passing on inside is committing no offence and if you think otherwise can you send me the link.
your also wrong. I never mentioned breaking the Rules of the Road. I said breaking one rule. Only a small amount of rules are mandatory and nobody can show me where it says you “must not” pass on inside lane of motorway. I’v even asked the RSA this question yet they cannot answer.
What makes me laugh about irish drivers is as we have read here on the journal on many occasions the amount of times the driving lane is completely empty. yes the fuking driving lane, That’s the one that I’v previously said I always pass those idiots in. That makes 99.999% of those who use motorways, lane hoggers.
Bunny – That sign only means that a can can be located there, the point I was trying to make they should alert drivers a few km in advance that the speed van IS there. Let’s be honest most of us go past them camera signs and may slow slightly but still need to jam on when we see the van, by alerting people of the van this wouldn’t be as dangerous.
The roads have become much safer these last 10 years or so. There’s no doubt in my mind about that. There has been a sea shift in driver behaviour over all. It was long overdue.
It still galls me to continuously see cops with speed guns on motorways when only 3% of accidents happen on motorways.
The NCT is half assed. I’ve fixed very simple problems with friends and neighbours cars that were critical safety issues AFTER they have come out of the NCT and PASSED the NCT. A neighbours car had a connection to his battery terminal corroded to the point that the car would intermittently lose power. He’d be driving along normally and the car would conk out and die. His headlights, brakes, steering – the entire car would just die. Literally free wheeling. If he had pulled out at a junction and lost power half way through that junction with an oncoming car he was dead. His car wouldn’t start outside the NCT centre either so he did a patch up job in the car park, put it through, and when it came back out the other side, it wouldn’t start again. Same battery connection problem. It lasted the length of the test.
Not to mention if you go back and resit your test for a failed electric window for eaxmple, you used to be able to simply swap out the window motor from another door as they only retested that one indivdual failure!
Its been many years since I did an NCT so this may all have changed now. I do a DOE and it’s way less stringent than the NCT. In itself laughable considering my vehicle would do a lot more damage than any car if it was in an accident. It should be stricter for me ffs. Not the other way around.
That’s not a comment, it’s an essay!
There are cars being failed that should have passed, my parents car failed on something very minor even their mechanic couldn’t understand why, he done a few minor adjustments; car on retest, tester opened bonnet looked in and passed, mechanic said he would not have been able to see the concerned part by just looking in the open bonnet, I since heard the testers get commission for each car they fail and they have targets to reach.
There needs to be a fine for being a dangerous pedestrian. i.e. Walking in a black tracksuit in the dsrk on an unlit road. High viz jackets are free from the RSA ffs.
Pushing baby buggies on the hard shoulder of busy roads?
well that’s pure child endangerment! no footpath is never an excuse I’d avoid any road that hasn’t a footpath
@Sharon,and I don’t mean out of necessity, I saw ladies walking their buggies 3 abreast on the road up from Rosslare to the Waterford turn off some time back.
What is it with this county’s obsession with road deaths. Why do we need to be up-dated nightly on road deaths and crashes. News media appear to focus on this small proportion of Irish deaths. To give an example 2012; 162 Road Deaths compared to 507 Suicides – and I don’t remember Eileen Dunne giving a running count of suicides, ads or money being pumped into suicide prevention services. (I would have picked a later year as an example, but as i mentioned nobody is doing a daily up-date)
Simple , road deaths are preventable.
I hazard a guess that if the same amount of money was put into suicide prevention as they put into the RSA the number of suicides would reduce noticeably.
I hazard a guess that if the same amount of money was put into Prostate Cancer prevention as they put into the RSA the number of deaths would reduce would reduce noticeably. But as this item is on road deaths I will leave the whataboutery for another day.
Because it’s a business that runs for profit. That’s the bottom line no matter what the sheep say.
Not all road deaths are preventable. Those caused by human error which accounts for around 90% are caused mainly by dangerous, careless driving are preventable.
I’m pretty sure I’ve read two articles only recently about suicide statistics. One focused on the Geographical breakdown around the country and the other was about focused on Costruction Industry suicides. There’s also an an ad campaign around at suicide prevention.
It is quite possible that some of those who died ( those not wearing safety belts) intended to do so and should really be treated as suicides!
Cyclists not obeying the rules of the road either! Had a green to go through a cross road junction and nearly collided with a bike who had decided the red light didn’t apply to him and went through it at speed!
How many cyclists caused the single car accidents on rural roads where the car was found to be speeding?
I get the annoyance on any bad road user but think about it for a second. Cyclists aren’t killing road users motorists are and they are all speeding.
Was wondering how long it would be before the Cyclists got blamed for all this, well done “Kaz” first prize!
Suicide victims usually wouldn’t wear a seatbelt.
I know of 3 single car crashes that were basically suicides but covered up for various reasons. The real suicide rate in this country is about 5k a year and that’s really scary.
I would say a lot of no seatbelt accidents are single vehicle and the person hits a tree or lampost. suicide by high speed collision very sad . I wonder if they released and data on this
Amazingly bicycles doesn’t seem to be the cause of accidents but many drivers seem to think they are hugely dangerous. Perception versus reality should make drivers realise that they are the real danger to other users. Time for a congestion charge and higher fines/points for speeding in built up areas
The “N” plate doesn’t seem to be working.
It works for me. I now know to give the new driver some more time. The N plate is for others also.
I think a major factor in road deaths is drivers using their phones while Gardai are deployed by Irish Water.
Rene Descartes might have a problem believing that you exist based on the fact that the initial two words of your sentence are implausible.
Given that a high percentage of road deaths are caused by young people speeding on back roads, perhaps part of the road safety budget should be put towards subsidising track days where young drivers get to open the throttle in a safe(r) environment. It may just satisfy their need for speed with the option of education from someone they may respect (professional driver) more than the police or politicians.
..@Gus. where are your facts to back this up? I’m calling BS as the RSA themselves say exceeding the safe limit (note, not the legally posted limit. ..) accounts for less than 10% of accidents…..you’re just making the usual trotted ‘speed’ sweeping statement. .
John, what do you mean by “exceeding the safe limit”? Do you mean inappropiate speeding? Inappropiate speeding is responsible for less than 5% of road crashes. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1061808/Speeding-drivers-cause-3-car-accidents-figures-reveal.html
should have read ” excessive speed” is responsible for less than 5%………
I’m not talking about accidents, I’m talking about accidents causing death. I find it hard to believe that stats on safe driving speed limits take into account the many variables and nuances in driving conditions from wet to visibility to time of day to car condition etc etc. if you think that people slowing down won’t save lives then we will never agree. Give me all the stats you want. I see people driving too fast every day.
Additionally, the stats would have to take into account driver limitations. Reaction time, ability. The stats are pretty much worthless if you ask me.
Professional racing drivers know very well the limitations of their machine and their own ability in most conditions. They push it to the limit and going beyond that limit results in crashing out. Usually into bails or tyres. The consequences of going beyond this limit on public roads is a lot worse. You somehow want to contest this?
What ever happened to driving to suit the road conditions? The speed limits on roads are not targets to be reached and drivers must allow for the stupidity of other road users such as dog walkers, many cyclists and halfwits behind to wheel of cars with more power going to the sound system and lights than there is going to the wheels.
Speed increases the devastation of an accident. It isn’t about it simply being the cause it is about the increase of damage and reaction time loss.
Somebody speeding behind a person who has a blowout who then crashes into them. The cause won’t be speed but made it worse. Same applies to hitting anything at speed.
If you look at insurance payouts there is often a reduction on payments due to driving speed.
Take all Nissan micras and other similar silly cars off the roads and the standard of driving will improve dramatically. I spend my life being stuck behind them. Slow drivers are a danger to all
Sounds like you’re compensating for something.
Ditto for cars driven by oldies wearing tweed caps , the most dangerous breed of driver and of course don’t forget about the local farmers looking in over hedges to see what the neighbours are up to and forgetting there supposed to be driving on the right , met a few of them in my day .
Young drivers should get lessons in mondello race circuit on how to handle a vehicle at speed and also introduce a skid pan like they have in Sweden where you learn how to control a skid in a controller environment . We did this as part of our induction in stavanger Norway as we were deemed not to be up to speed on the icy roads .
I would say a lot of those single drivers killed without seatbelt are actually suicide.
Or two chaps acting the hardchaw racing bangers, one crashes and the other drives off and tells nobody
So 2/3 people killed were wearing seat belts? Ban them, obviously
Why is high viz the answer to all issues with Pedestrians and Cyclists?? The more people wearing high viz just means we all blend in and become invisible again. RSA needs to display more imagination.
Really? So you think 100 people in high viz vests are less visible than one person in a high viz vest?
I wonder how much taxpayers’ money was wasted producing these “findings”? It is amazing how the Irish public will just sit back and tolerate various government quangos, who seek to justify their existence, squandering hard-pressed and hard-taxed citizens’ money producing blindingly obvious reports such as this from the so-called Road Safety Authority, telling the public what every father and mother already knows: that not wearing one’s seatbelt is a leading cause of serious injuries or death in car accidents! What an earth-shattering and game-changing “finding”!
Darwin Awards.
in 9 months 57 people died in traffic accidents, in the same 9 months 3333 people died from smoke related diseases , Would the money spent on policing roads, advertising the dangers of bad driving habits not be better spent on Anti Smoking campaigns. If we could reduce smoking by about 10% it’s the equivalent of preventing all traffic accidents.
!
hard to believe that in this day and age people will still get into a car and drive without wearing seatbelts. I would feel naked without my belt fastened…. wake up people
have your say