Siġġiewi Council Hits Out At Primary School For Uprooting Trees It Said Were ‘Safety Hazard’
Siġġiewi’s local council has criticised a primary school for chopping down trees, describing the uprooting as “obscene and insensitive to the tow’s community”.
“We would like to clarify that the trees that were chopped down were exclusively owned by the Siġġiewi Primary School,” the council said yesterday. “The council therefore has no right over that part of the school or the treatment of these trees.”
“We would like to condemn whoever took this decision for this obscene and inventive act towards the Siġġiewi community and we pledge to keep on planting more trees in our locality.”
News that the trees had been uprooted angered a number of people, with PN MP Ryan Callus decrying it as an act of hypocrisy in the messages given to children.
However, the school’s principal Sean Zammit told Times of Malta that the trees had to be uprooted because their shallow roots were pushing up tiles in the school corridor and kitchen, making them a safety hazard for students.
“Children have tripped over the uneven tiles and ended up landing on their face. We needed to find an urgent solution to what had become a pressing problem,” he said.
Zammit said he contacted the Environment and Resources Authority and that ERA confirmed the school didn’t require permission to cut down the trees as they weren’t endemic.
Cover photo left: Siġġiewi mayor Dominic Grech
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