PLANS to turn a beautiful private wood into a burial ground could be scuppered by fears the buried corpses would affect the trees.

Now, the Walsh Trust which owns Lord's Wood, Collett's Green, Powick, has appealed for their neighbours' support for the scheme by placing high-profile adverts in the Evening News and sister paper, the Malvern Gazette.

They say those buried at the 17-acre site would have a natural setting and a canopy of trees instead of a graveyard and commemorative gravestone.

But Powick Parish Council has hit out at the plans saying the decomposing bodies could affect the root base of the trees.

The Walsh Trust - which bought the Croome Estate about five years ago - insists the council's concerns are unfounded and not backed by scientific evidence.

Their advert follows a meeting of Powick Parish Council in December at which several people raised opposition to the scheme.

"There are also wider issues around this about the general matter of it being a wood which has been an integral part of parish life for a long time and the issue of how people will access the wood and where they'll park," said council chairman Andy Lamb.

But Mr Walsh said it was an ideal use of the land and that several people had also supported the scheme when they advertised in the Powick News last year.

"We've been looking for the past four or five years - not to ruin it but of a way to conserve it," he said.

"The feedback we've had so far has not been enough to gauge opinion so my thought was 'let's run an ad in the paper', and if there's a groundswell of opinion against it we'll reconsider it.

"We think that while it's a technical change of use it'll not really affect anything there."

The application for change of use is set to go before Malvern Hills District Council planning committee by Monday, February 21.

Anyone who wishes to register their opinion with the trusts is invited to visit the website which can be found at: www. luciesfa rm.com/green