WestConnex protesters take to the trees, clash with police in Sydney Park over clearing work
Protesters have clashed with police at Sydney Park as tree lopping begins for the WestConnex interchange.
Some resisted officers attempting to clear the area, others climbed the trees they are hoping to save.
The project is using 1,500 square metres of the 400,000sqm park.
There will be 1,600 new trees planted in a new green space around the interchange and elsewhere in the community.
The latest demonstrations come just over a week after WestConnex contractors came face-to-face with Sydney Park protesters trying to begin work on tree clearing.
Westconnex Action Group spokeswoman Pauline Lockie said protesters asked the two employees who arrived to show proof of state ownership over the land on January 3.
"They couldn't do that so we said: 'look, well, don't come back until you can produce that paperwork'," Ms Lockie told AAP.
NSW Roads Minister Duncan Gay said after that protest that the multi-billion-dollar road project was using land set aside as a road reserve well before Sydney Park existed.
He said WestConnex would be a well-need improvement for the road network which would at an extra 85,000sqm of open space with the renewal of an old landfill.
"To do this we have had to acquire just 1500 square metres of Sydney Park land (equivalent of one bowling green),” Mr Gay said at the time.
