An emotive proposal to cut down a Perth tree which commemorates two youngsters who died in a tragic accident will be decided by councillors next week.
Despite pleas from teachers and pupils at Perth Academy to save the Scots pine within the school grounds, the recommendation to councillors is to cut down the tree to make way for a new synthetic sports pitch.
The application by the council sparked outrage among staff and pupils at the school because to them the tree represented more than simply a tree.
Callum Owen, a former pupil at Perth Academy, and his brother Ethan, who attended Robert Douglas Memorial School, died in a road accident in 2009 and the Scots pine both bears a plaque and shades a memorial bench.
A petition of opposition was organised by pupils and more than 500 signatures were collected in an effort to prevent the 250-year-old tree being sacrificed to make way for the development.
When they last debated the issue, councillors granted a stay of execution while the importance of the tree was investigated.
According to a paper to go before the development management committee on Wednesday, the council’s own greenspace policy officer for trees and woodland believes it to be a “very important tree due to its age, history, location” and it remained his opinion that every effort should be made to come up with a revised layout to allow retention of the tree.
The council rejected a request for a tree preservation order, on the grounds that the potential loss of the Scots pine would not have a significant impact on the local environment.
Nick Brian, the council’s development quality manager, says in his report: “Whilst it remains unfortunate that the Scots pine would be lost as a result of the proposed development, the tree has no statutory protection.”
Ian Owen, the father of the boys the tree commemorates, said yesterday he was opposed to losing the tree but, if this happened, he would embrace the idea that the new pitch be used as a memorial.
What had angered him was that he only learned of the proposal to cut down the tree from a newspaper report and that the school pupils had been put in the position of having to organise a campaign.