Diseased trees get the chop along river bank (From Worcester News)

Diseased trees get the chop along river bank

12:00pm Wednesday 16th December 2009

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ABOUT 50 dead and diseased trees are being removed from riverside walkways in Worcester after a two-week delay due to flooding.

The footpath from the South Quay fountains and along Kleve Walk will be shut off in parts to members of the public while the work takes place.

But officers at Worcester City Council are hopeful the project, which forms part of the second phase of the riverside improvement scheme, could be finished well before the end of the two-week deadline they set.

Chris Dobbs, landscape architect, said: “We started on Monday morning and they are getting on with the work quite well even though it’s only been a couple of days.

“We have taken down the big lime trees at the fountains and now we’re moving onto the alders.”

We previously reported in your Worcester News how many of the alder trees being removed are suffering from a fungal disease called phytophthora alni which kills the bark around the base and causes them to die – a national problem according to Mr Dobbs. Existing willow on the river bank will be kept for wildlife value along with young alders.

Mr Dobbs said if the current work carries on at the rate it is going, all of the marked trees, which have been checked by ecologists to ensure wildlife and habitats are not affected, could be removed by the end of the week.

However, the project will not be fully finished for some time because the majority of the replacement tree planting will not take place until about this time next year.

Mr Dobbs said: “It will look quite different when people go down there but the trees were diseased and were in very poor condition.

“There was a lot of dead wood and they had come to the end of their natural lives.

“We are putting in new trees, three will be going in quite soon, while the other ones will be going in next planting season because we will be doing lots of paving work next spring and we don’t want to put them in only to move and damage them.”

The waterfront project from the city bridge to the junction with the Worcester and Birmingham canal junction will include extra seating, new signs and interpretations of the area’s natural and social history at key points, as well as the new trees.

Work on transforming the waterfront began last year and coincides with the installation of the new £2 million foot and cycle bridge linking Diglis with Lower Wick – due next June.

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