New street trees to be pulled out after power company backtrack

Newly-planted trees along a street in the South Australian town of Naracoorte will be pulled out after the local council and SA Power Networks differed on whether the area had a high or low bushfire risk.

Naracoorte Lucindale Council agreed to a trial with the power infrastructure company to plant new street trees along Attiwill Street, but after planting in January, SA Power Networks backtracked and said they would have to be removed.

It said the area on the southern outskirts of Naracoorte was a high bushfire-risk area under maps it used from the state government’s Office of the Technical Regulator that were created in 1988.

The council had been looking at the bushfire risk plotted by the South Australian Planning and Property Atlas, which said the area was a much lower bushfire risk.

In a report to last night’s council meeting, Naracoorte Lucindale Council infrastructure and services director Daniel Willsmore said he had received two different sets of advice from SA Power Networks (SAPN).

“After approval from SAPN, the wilga trees were subsequently planted in January 2023 and it was communicated to SAPN,” he wrote.

“It was at this point where SAPN highlighted to [the] council that the trees have been planted in a high bushfire-risk area and will have to be removed.”

The trees will be moved to another street in Naracoorte.

Powerlines a thorny issue

SA Power Networks has faced lawsuits over bushfires sparked by powerlines falling on or touching trees.

But it also cops criticism for harshly pruning trees to leave space around powerlines.

Under the trial, the council will have to pay for pruning that is usually undertaken by SA Power Networks, but overall it will be less often because the tree canopy is shorter than other often-preferred street trees.

Naracoorte Lucindale councillor Craig McGuire said the trial had a lot of merit, even if it had gotten off to a bad start.

“It saves costings if you look at how much it actually costs them to prune trees around town — I think they do it every 12 months,” he said.

“To actually get a program like this up and running it’s commonsense and it will save everybody money in the long run.”

Apology to residents of street

SA Power Networks spokesman Paul Roberts said the impact on residents was “unfortunate and we apologise for that”.

“We have been working for some time with the Office of the Technical Regulator to streamline the process for reviewing bushfire area boundaries to recognise changing local conditions such as changes to town boundaries due to residential/business expansion,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the Department for Energy and Mining, which the Office of the Technical Regulator is part of, said “different considerations” went into defining bushfire-risk areas under the Electricity Act and for planning in general.

“In regard to this specific example, the Naracoorte boundary was last reviewed in 2003 and we note that there does not appear to have been significant development on Attiwill Street since this revision,” she said.

She said the council could apply to the Technical Regulator for areas of the town to be reclassified.

“The Technical Regulator assesses such applications on a case-by-case basis,” she said.

New native trees will be planted in Attiwill Street that are a lower danger in bushfires.

The council has delayed planting new trees in Cadgee Road, where the two maps also differ in bushfire risk.