“But what a massacre! “, “Anything”, “What a pity! Wooden benches would have been more sensible around the trees. The water will no longer seep in, and these trees will die”, “At a time when we are sounding all the alarms regarding your destruction, we can’t find anything better than suffocating you, under the pretext of not dirtying the shoes of these little schoolchildren, who maybe would have preferred to plant some flowers …” Here are some of the comments that can be read under the photos published yesterday by the city of Merville on its Facebook page, report our colleagues from the Voix du Nord.
On the city side, we assume “an error” related to a misunderstanding between the work carried out by the municipal services and the request. The instruction was to “go around the tree once more”. A point will be made as early as this Wednesday followingnoon in order to fix the error “as soon as possible”.
Alternative management to tar is developing: the city of Lille, for example, is debugging the playgrounds of its 79 schools to vegetate them with educational gardens, insect hotels or planting trays, this also to better promote the flow of rainwater.
The botanical conservatory of Bailleul shares the opinion of Internet users. “Recreating a connection with nature is part of the school curriculum. How to explain to children when they see the trees trapped in the bitumen that they need water to live, that the soil is alive? The trees will suffer, will no longer have nutrients coming from the surface. The most resistant will manage to move the tar. Instead of asphalt, it was possible to put perennials in ground cover or a border all around the trunks to prevent children from walking on them. »
