Mandurah family fight to move street tree from driveway

A Mandurah family is fighting their local council for the right to remove a large tree that's growing in the middle of their driveway.

When Natalie Quadrio bought the Coodanup home about two years ago she thought the tree was on her property but later discovered it belongs to the City of Mandurah - and they won't allow it to be removed.

The tree not only blocks her driveway, requiring her to make “a 20-point turn’ to get out, it also drops debris onto the solar hot water system.

"People are saying you shouldn't have bought the house if you didn't like the tree out the front but we honestly did think it was in our boundary," she said.

"I would like to see it removed, it is impractical it blocks off our left hand side of our garage so we can't actually use that.

The City of Mandurah said it was important residents considered existing infrastructure, including trees, when buying and building homes.

Residents could request tree inspection or maintenance but as a general rule pruning only occurs every “one-to-five years".

Verge trees were only removed if they were dead or diseased.

"So I rang and asked them could they come and prune it or can we remove it, about two weeks later I got a letter back saying sap, leaves, pollen, branches that fall are not their issue," Ms Quadrio said.

"I've been here two years and I've never ever seen them, tree lop or maintain these trees.

"I like trees, the reason we picked this area, it's a lovely area and it is all tree lined but there's no maintenance."

The previous owners of the property told Today Tonight they built they driveway the way it is because the council also refused them permission to remove the tree.