Suppose the neighbour over the back fence wanted to chop down a bunch of mature trees, despite an iron-clad planning condition set a decade earlier stopping them – the council responsible for your neighbourhood would step in, right?

Especially after you and another resident who wanted the trees protected told three different council officers repeatedly they must act.

Tony Enright in his Black Rock home, overlooking where five huge cypress and sheoak trees once stood. Credit:Michael Dodge

Not if your local council is Bayside, which has been lashed by the state planning tribunal for refusing to protect trees specifically barred from being removed.

The council has apologised to the residents involved in the tree dispute, which resulted in an expensive legal battle and a finding by a valuer that removing the trees had chopped $200,000 off the value of one of the affected houses.