By Paul Hemsley

City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore has revealed plans for tree change of grand proportions for the CBD’s biggest recreation green space, Hyde Park.

After suffering more at least a decade of age related illnesses and the occasional dangerous collapse, many of the park’s iconic Hills Fig trees will not only be gradually replaced but finally given solid foundations to help them take root properly and prosper.

The problem of how to best renew and preserve the figs that form Hyde Park’s majestic central avenue has long troubled the City because of strong public attachment to what has been an easily accessible outdoor haven for city workers otherwise confined to concrete canyons.

And while many of Hyde Park’s 536 figs might look healthy, in reality they are gradually rotting and hollowing from the inside because they were planted on poor quality landfill thrown up by the construction of the City Circle underground rail line in the 1930s.

The lack of regulations in the 1930s surrounding safe tree planting returned to haunt the council in June 2013 when a large branch from a Hill’s Fig tree collapsed and almost hit two mothers with prams prompting widespread publicity.

Now the council faces the big problem of safely managing the real risk of trees dropping limbs or falling over and potentially killing or injuring people while keeping the park open.

It potential disastrous events has pushed the council into moving ahead with plans to make the park safer through a new tree management plan developed after consultations with leading arborists.

The meetings influenced the City to conduct a full scale re-planting scheme of the affected Hill’s Fig trees in the name of “[preserving] the majority of the park’s majestic trees for as long as possible”.

The review between the council and the arborists then led the City to proceed with removing 16 diseased and damaged trees and increase the frequency of tree inspections and close the central avenue during “extreme weather events”.

Although the City moved to eradicate dangerous fig trees by removing 35 trees from the central avenue in 2004 and 2005 and just eight trees in 2006, the council has kept the remaining avenue trees in the ground longer because of an ongoing monitoring, pruning and removal program.