STATE government departments and City of Greater Bendigo staff last night met with frustrated residents still struggling with issues relating to Black Saturday.A petition of 600 signatures was presented to Parks Victoria and the council calling for felled trees along Maiden Gully Road to be removed.More than 30 bushfire-affected residents met with representatives from Parks Victoria, the Department of Sustainability and Environment, the Environment Protection Authority and the council at Our Shed in Eaglehawk.Maiden Gully resident Joy Bice said the felled trees caused unnecessary anxiety for residents living along Maiden Gully Road.“People described them as widow-makers – they could fall any time,” she said. “People see them as a fire hazard.“Is this habitat more important than our lives?”The council’s director of presentation and assets Darren Fuzzard said the roadside trees had been taken down by the council and then recognised by Parks Victoria as habitat.Bendigo Bushfire Action Group chairman Paul Epworth said it was unfair that permits had been approved to build houses near the calcine sands in Derwent Gully Road, West Bendigo.He said it was now impossible for the residents of those houses to sell their homes, given that there were signs nearby indicating there was poison in the sand.But the EPA’s north-west regional manager Tim Eaton said the type of arsenic levels in the sand were typical of what was around the rest of Bendigo.Mr Fuzzard said planning permits had not been given by the council because the state government had given exemptions for some permits after Black Saturday.Residents were also told that the bushfire memorial at the Richardson Reserve on Victoria Hill was expected to be finished in early April.

• clareq@bendigoadvertiser.com.au