The council said the storm damaged 12 trees, uprooting or tearing limbs off nine spotted gums and three Illawarra flame trees.

“Qualified council arborists assessed the trees prior to lopping,” a council spokeswoman said on Tuesday. 

“Given the damage to the trees and the safety risk, they made a determination that the trees needed to be removed.”

She said the trees would be replaced with the same species and would cost about $1000 each to replant.

The mall trees have faced many challenges and controversies in their short lives.

Since being planted in 2013, they have been attacked by mealybugs, had branches pulled off by vandals requiring them to be surrounded by high cages and been criticised for being “widow makers” by nervous shoppers and business owners.

But Lord Mayor Gordon Bradbery defended the council’s choice of tree, saying it was simply unfortunately timing that such a damaging storm hit while they were still young.

“The trees weren’t fully established, so they were still at the sappling stage,” he said.

“Flame Trees as well as gum trees were affected. It’s sad this has happened, but in some respects that mall is a corridor for winds.”

He said the city centre steering committee met on Monday to look at the replacement of the trees, as well as ways to protect them until they were established.

“Unfortunately they were just nearly entering a stage where they would have been quite strong and sufficient on their own.

“The climate is dramatically changing and we have planned all these things with climate models in mind – the trees or the beaches, or rain events – and I think this is just a very dramatic event that now calls into question how we do things and the challenges we confront.”

He said climate studies indicated the weekend’s storms were not a one off, meaning the council would need to adapt planning strategies to suit wilder weather.