At least 386 trees will have to be removed to make way for the planned £18.5 million dual carriageway through the Glen of the Downs, the High Court was told yesterday; 124 of those have already been cut down.
Mr Joseph Treacy, a former official with Coillte and the Forestry and Wildlife Section of the former Department of Lands, said an additional 119 trees on either side of the proposed road may have to be removed because of the danger that they might fall on the Co Wicklow roadway.
A further 115 trees in the glen would have to be felled for safety reasons irrespective of whether the road goes through or not, he said.
Of the 386 trees to be removed to make way for the roadway, 166 were ash, 41 were beech and 26 sycamore. Seventy-nine per cent of the 386 were native species.
Mr Treacy said the removal of trees in the glen had to be compared with the 6,000 new trees planned for the area in the next few years.
In the general wider area of the glen, about 80,000 trees would be untouched by the proposed new highway, he said.
Of the oak trees in the Glen of the Downs forest, many of which were between 100 and 200 years old, 55 would definitely have to be cut down to make way for the dual carriageway, he said.
Mr Treacy said the trees in the glen had more than an adequate supply of precipitation for their survival and were not dependent on ground water.
Removal of a small number of trees would only have a minimal effect on remaining numbers, he said.
Mr John Higgins, a director of the civil engineers Ove Arup and Partners, Ireland, said some 6,000 cubic metres of rock and scree would need to be carefully removed over two months to facilitate construction of the new road. That would involve the removal of 11,000 tonnes of material, not a large amount in the context of this strip of roadway, he said.
Yesterday was the fifth day of the action by Mr Dermot Murphy, a computer technician, formerly of Exchequer Street, Dublin, and now living in Galway, against Wicklow County Council's plan to construct the dual carriageway through the Glen of the Downs.
The hearing before Mr Justice Kearns continues today.