A LARGE collection of trees will be removed from land owned by Malvern College over fears they are set to collapse.
Malvern Hills District Council has given the go-ahead for 25 Lombardy Poplar trees to be felled off Court Road, the sports grounds of the college.
A recent arboricultural inspection of the trees found nine of them to be badly decayed at the base of the main stems. The extent of the decay means there is a high risk of the trees collapsing – with two in the line of 25 having already fallen.
The trees are covered by a Tree Preservation Order so the college applied to MHDC for permission to remove and replace them with native oaks.
Chris Lewis-Farley, landscape officer at Malvern Hills, said: “It is a great shame to see large trees like this removed, particularly such prominent specimens.
“But because of the risk that more trees could fall, we feel that in this instance it is the right approach to take.
“We are excited about the new planting that will go in because having a row of native oaks will be a real asset to the diversity of Malvern’s treescape.”
Work is likely to be carried out in the next couple of weeks and replacement trees will go in this winter.
