Cork councillor seeks pause on tree removal at area earmarked as possible ecology park

Trees and vegetation should not be removed from Skibbereen’s marsh until nature-based alternatives have been examined, says a local councillor.

The Social Democrats’ Isobel Towse has called on the Office of Public Works (OPW) to give commitments about future work. She raised the issue at a recent meeting of Cork County Council’s West Cork Municipal District.

Ms Towse said she had been contacted by local people concerned about planned works at the marsh.

She said the area was species-rich and had been identified as a future ‘marsh ecology park’ in the Skibbereen Town Centre First Plan.

Ms Towse said residents were worried that trees and vegetation might be removed without sufficient consideration of alternatives that would protect the character and ecological value of the site.

She asked the municipal district to write to the OPW seeking a pause in any further clearance, while the need for the works — and options based on nature — was properly examined.

“The marsh is a very species-rich area,” Ms Towse told the meeting. 

She said vegetation had already been removed earlier in the year, during the nesting period, and that local people were upset by the work. People wanted reassurance that any other work would be limited to take account of wildlife.

Ms Towse said the concern was not simply about individual trees, but about protecting a site that had been earmarked for an ecology park within the town-centre plan. 

Ms Towse said the OPW should show that it had investigated nature-based solutions before any further vegetation was removed at the marsh.

• Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.