SURE footed workmen have been busy tackling the uppermost branches of two old trees at Worcester Rowing Club.

On Thursday, a team of tree surgeons winched themselves to dizzying heights and used chain saws to sever several boughs from the Plane and Lime trees.

Tom Murray, whose staff at Faithful Tree Care carried out the work, said: "We are just removing a couple of metres from the upper crown, reducing the force on the branches.

"It [the Plane tree] was traditionally a pollarded tree. It probably has been over 50 years since it has been pollarded so to pollard it again would stress and old tree out and it would probably die off.

"So just by doing a crown reduction it keeps the tree healthy and there is enough foliage on the tree for it to survive, but it reduces the chance of branches or stem failure."

He continued to explain the discarded logs will be used for fire wood while the rest will be chipped and turned into mulch.