SIR - On Monday, August 11, I witnessed the vandalism, nay emasculation, of one of the lovely trees that line our High Street. This clumsily-performed circumcision was undertaken by no less than Stevenage Borough Council s own employees. The remains of t

SIR - On Monday, August 11, I witnessed the vandalism, nay emasculation, of one of the lovely trees that line our High Street.

This clumsily-performed circumcision was undertaken by no less than Stevenage Borough Council's own employees. The remains of the tree in question can still be seen, sadly denuded, outside Prezzo at the south end of the High Street.

Why was this undertaken, I ask? 'Oh,' says Mr Chainsaw, 'there was a break-in nearby recently, and the police asked us why the incident was not picked up on the security camera almost opposite. Ah, said my boss, it is because there is a tree in the way. Oh, says Mr Plod, (by now irritated that the ways of justice are being severely impeded by something as inconsiderately sited as a tree that has been there for years) oh, then the tree must be lopped so that the camera can be the see all and end all of stopping crime in Our Lovely Old Town that we now rarely have time to police ourselves'.

This is obviously a paraphrase, but how ludicrous that one tree has had to suffer because a security camera that has only been there a few years was wrongly sited. I bet the crooks casing premises up and down the High Street are even now, with much glee, working out what other premises are vulnerable because security cameras cannot see through trees.

A final thought. What happened before we had security cameras? Oh, I almost forgot - we had a police presence, didn't we?

NAME AND ADDRESS

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