I SEE Darlington Borough Council is considering yet another massacre of fine mature trees as it has passed plans for houses to be built on the site of the former education offices at Mowden (Echo, Mar 22 & 15).

What is it with the council that it seems incapable of learning from experience? Has the intense public revulsion and condemnation elicited by its previous exploit at Blackwell not registered with it yet?

I refer to the absurd comment quoted in your report from an officer saying that some trees can “easily be replaced”. Mature trees? Easily replaced? Whose intelligence is he insulting?

As it happens I know those trees. I used to take an old friend round there in her wheelchair (she was a resident at nearby Wilton House, just off Nunnery Lane). She loved looking at them. They include some beautiful Wellingtonias that will be at least 150 years old.

Their loss, as far as this generation is concerned, would be absolute, terminal and irreversible.

Tony Kelly, Crook