Laman Street is Newcastle's most beautiful street, lined with fig trees planted by returned servicemen in the 1930's which now overhang the city's ANZAC memorial in Civic Park.
The Newcastle City Council have secretly and unlawfully tried to rid the trees to make way for a redevelopment of Laman street to comprise shops and cafes, under the guise of an ANZAC centenary memorial redevelopment.
NCC did not put this plan up for public exhibition and have tried to go ahead with the redevelopment without following proper development application procedures.
NCC did not liaise with the community from the beginning of this process and have been scare mongering the people, trying to convince the community that fourteen figs in the street are likely to fall down in the next five to fifteen years.
NCC has based their claims on the advice of a single arborist and has wrangled their way through two years of community requests for the process to be assessed independently.
The community believe other alternatives need to be examined such as closing the street to vehicles and/or pedestrians or closing the street in storms.
To make this saga even more interesting there is evidence of Conflict of Interest issues; whereby one councillor is an ex-tree-cutter and now nursery owner and other councillors are local property investors.
Community has been successful in delaying the process for as long as possible, but are now calling on federal and international help to stop further destruction; after NCC allowed the chainsaws to start work on Friday 07 Oct 2011. Protestors were arrested and work was disrupted.