Fremantle councillors lament nasty turn in tree debate as they push ahead with oval plans

More than a month after works to remove 26 trees at a popular playing fields in Perth’s south to make way for a new junior football oval were paused, the project is officially up and running again Despite a three-hour special electors meeting earlier in September, where residents fought to stop the tree removal altogether, City of Fremantle councillors unanimously voted to support the original plan for the Hilton Park oval redevelopment last night.

Councillor Andrew Sullivan said the situation was challenging due to everyone in Fremantle being an “activist” – including himself. “This room is full of activists, and I say that because I’m one, and I look around the chamber, and I know most people in this room, at one stage or another, have fought really hard for something that they value in their lives, or in their friends’ lives, or in their family’s lives, or the like,” he said.

“This issue that’s before us is something that is very concerning for a lot of people from different perspectives, and it was appropriate to take the time to pause the process and to give another opportunity for people to be heard, in a process which I believe there has been a lot of opportunity for people to be heard. “But that doesn’t always mean that everybody has been heard, and it doesn’t always mean that we should close ourselves off to that continual listening that I think Fremantle prides itself on.