Tend, remove trees before further action
Published on: Saturday, April 10, 2021
By: Sidney Skinner
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Errant parties here taken to throwing garden waste on this government land.
The overgrown trees have encroached into the path of the cables along the backyard.
“They should look after their plants and trees. This means pruning them and making sure that they do become diseased or unsightly. “In this way, their greenery will not become a public nuisance or danger.” He said this advice also applied in situations where flower-pots were placed on verges in front of residential and commercial properties. “When it comes to road-shoulders and five-foot ways, rate-payers should use suitable potted plants. “By ‘suitable’, we mean greenery that does not have thorns and does not obstruct the view of drivers, or get in the way of pedestrians, when they are fully grown.” The spokesman warned that plant-owners could be instructed to take away their pots or greenery if they did not abide by City Hall’s conditions. “They will be deemed to have encroached onto government land and, therefore, asked to remove their greenery from this property.” He said the agency was responsible for maintaining the drain reserves around the State Capital. “The grass in these areas is cut on a monthly basis.
Among the greenery planted on the reserve are vegetables like this.
“Any trees in these common areas, which were planted by us, are pruned as and when it becomes necessary to do so.” JOSIE of Kolombong bemoaned the nuisance created by the overgrown trees on the reserve land behind her home “They shed leaves in my compound and I am constantly having to clean up this mess,” she said. “I saw my neighbour watering some of these plants, at one stage, and appealed to her to prune this greenery.” After several months, when she found that her pleas had fallen on deaf ears, she turned to City Hall for help. “By this time, the plants had become so unkempt that I feared unscrupulous parties might use them as cover to peep inside my house and stage a break-in. “Several homes along my housing road have already been burgled over the past few months, so I was understandably concerned. “I related my misgivings to one of the agency’s staff in September last year and was assured that action would be taken.” She contacted City Hall again at the beginning of April and was dismayed to find that her grievance had yet to be addressed. Josie said the situation had become worse in the intervening months.
This overgrown ‘private garden’ on a Kolombong drain reserve is a nuisance to some here.
“Other parties living in the same area have taken to dumping their garden waste on the reserve.” She decried the piles of cut branches and overgrown greenery as being a potential fire-hazard. “The branches of the trees are so long that they are touching the power lines behind my house. If there is a stray spark, a fire might break out. “My house and loved ones could be put at risk because of this.” She appealed to Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) to deal with this irregularity as soon as possible before anyone came to harm. Josie provided Hotline with the location of her home which was forwarded to City Hall and the company. A SESB spokeswoman said its staff went to the area on the same day that it was made aware of this problem. “These overhead lines belong to a telecommunication company and not to SESB,” she said. “As such, there is little we can do to prune the branches near these cables.”
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