Jane's all smiles as trees spared axe - for now

Jane Davidson is probably not the sort of woman who would hug any old tree.
But she showed no hesitation in giving a good squeeze to a sole London plane tree among the 11 heritage trees in Whangarei's Mander Park, reprieved from the axe by a delay in road works on State Highway 1.
It's a favourite of hers among the trees, which were lined up to be felled by Fulton Hogan at the weekend so SH1 could be widened at its Central Ave intersection, and the intersection traffic flow improved.
Ms Davidson has lived in Third Ave, on the southern side of Mander Park, for 11 years and she likes those trees. Affection for them saw her start a petition, which in a fortnight collected 625 signatures of people calling on the Whangarei District Council to save them.
But with the trees remaining on death row, Ms Davidson last weekend tied yellow ribbons around the trunks of the 11 trees and put up signs bearing messages such as "Farewell my lovely".
The New Zealand Transport Agency has now deferred the road-widening project because of unapproved funding and approaching winter rain. When she heard about the reprieve on Monday, Ms Davidson took the signs down. She thinks they might be useful later because she is far from optimistic the trees will survive next summer's road construction season.
NZTA principal project manager Brett Gliddon, said the trees were safe until the next construction season.