Cherry trees at risk from fellers

People living in a street where visitors flock to see cherry trees festooned with lights every Christmas have said the tradition is being wrecked by the local council’s felling programme.

Householders in Sheffield were horrified when masked contractors turned up at 4.30am on Tuesday to cut down branches overhanging their front gardens.

Some of the lights, which attract dozens of visitors and have helped raise hundreds of pounds for a hospice, were damaged and left dangling over the road. Now they fear Tuesday’s work is just a prelude to the felling before Christmas of some or all of the 19 threatened trees on the street, in Abbeydale Park Rise in the leafy suburb of Dore and they are taking turns to stand guard.

The council says only a small proportion of the city’s 36,000 street trees are being removed because they are diseased or dangerous.