Herefordshire villagers are angry that a landmark local tree has been ripped out – though they claim it posed no danger.
The yew immediately north of Dorstone in the Golden Valley, at the junction of the B4348, Pentre Lane and Spoon Lane, was removed by contractors on March 17 using a crane with a tree handler and a lorry.
Neighbour Jack Sloper had parked his car under the tree earlier in the day in a bid to save it.
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“The contractors asked me to move and I said no,” he explained. “They called the police, who came and, I think, saw my side, and the contractors drove off.”
But later when the tree was unattended, they returned and not only chopped the tree down, but uprooted it entirely using a crane-mounted grabber.
Mr Sloper’s wife June added: “We think it was a healthy tree. We only heard in a letter on Friday that it was coming down, as they said it posed an imminent danger.”
She acknowledged that the tree roots were exposed on the bank by the junction, “but they have been for many years”.
A mature horse chestnut also at the junction was felled some years ago – “but that was understandable as it was diseased”, Mrs Sloper added.
Nearby resident John Morgan, who videoed the removal of the tree, said: “It feels like a rushed job. The tree was in no danger of tipping over.”
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Arboricultural consultant and chair of Herefordshire Tree Forum Jerry Ross said that from online images, the tree appeared to be about 150 years old, while the erosion of the bank “looked pretty much the same in 2009 as it did in 2024”.
“It appears a perfectly acceptable, inoffensive specimen has been felled, with the very roots that formerly served to hold up the bank wrenched out of the ground, leaving it damaged and no doubt requiring work to stabilise it,” he said.
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“And the not inconsiderable costs will no doubt be borne by the taxpayer.”
Yews can be among the longest-lived of native British trees, with lifespans in the hundreds or even thousands of years.
Herefordshire Council and its public realm contractor Balfour Beatty were asked to explain the felling and uprooting of the tree, but did not respond before publication.
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