When Peter Petrou was looking for a leaky pipe that was gushing water into his front yard, he saw a protruding tree root. Petrou lives in a home in Randwick, New South Wales, with his elderly parents and his young children, and as such, the root was a safety hazard. He grabbed his blade and gave the root the chop. As it turns out, cutting that single root on the brush box tree is costing Peter Petrou a lot of money. Peter Petrou was fined $19,000 for cutting the root of a brush box tree and violating a local tree preservation order.
The fine was handed down by Waverly Local Court thanks to the work of a Justice Milledge, and it is the largest fine of its kind ever issued by Randwick’s local government. The tree was also removed from Petrou’s property by local officials for its safety. Randwick’s mayor, Murray Matson of the Green party, is thrilled by the ruling, but Petrou continues to argue that human safety should be valued over one root of a tree, the cutting of which did not harm the tree.
“It’s not like I was drilling holes in the night to get a view,” said Petrou. “It was just a duty-of-care issue. There’s kids that walk along that path, and my elderly parents use the front steps … I didn’t think one root could kill a tree.”
Tags: law and order, unusual fines, man fined 000 for cutting tree root, Peter Petrou, Randwick, New South Wales, Australia, Waverly Local Court, brush box tree, man fined 000 for cutting brush box tree root, Peter Petrou fined 19000 dollars for cutting brush box tree root, record tree preservation order fine
