Robin Hood’s Sherwood Forest has been left ‘in ruins’ after bungling council contractors chopped down 30 protected trees.
Residents were shocked to find the pine and oak trees had been mistakenly felled by contractors Foxstone Forestry, leaving them ‘in uproar’.
The trees, located in the Intake Wood nature reserve, held a protected status, meaning it is prohibited to chop them down without express authorisation and the proper licence.
In England, those responsible for wrongly felling protected trees can be fined up to £20,000, while breaching a felling licence can result in an unlimited fine.
The woodland – part of the medieval royal hunting forest – is managed by Newark and Sherwood District Council, with works taking place as part of an initiative to replant native species.
The council announced a pause to ongoing felling work after it emerged that trees outside of the licence area had been affected.
The Forestry Commission has now launched an inquiry into the incident, which a spokesperson for Foxstone Forestry said was ‘accidental’ and without malicious intent.
Mother-of-two Nicola Gayson said the workers should have been more careful.
The 50-year-old, who operates a cleaning company, said: ‘It’s gone beyond drastic what they’ve done, it’s absolutely unbelievable. It’s disgusting.
‘They’ve felled the wrong trees, and they’ve just left them in the middle of the path. You cannot walk in those woods safely.
‘Everybody is saying the same, we’re all angry. I would not want to be a part of the council and walk down these streets because everyone is in uproar over this.’
She says the loss of trees has also destroyed the privacy in nearby homes: ‘You can see straight into some people’s houses because of the lack of trees now, you can see their living rooms.’
Resident Alan Sands, 73, moved into the area in 2011 and said the woodland helped distract him while he battled cancer.
The retired building surveyor said: ‘Unfortunately, that mistake is going to take 50 years to rectify.
‘People like myself use that wood on a daily basis, but now that is gone. Replanting is not going to fix that in my lifetime.
‘We estimate around 20 to 30 trees have been destroyed.
‘This area was designated for thinning, which is normal forestry practice. But they’ve taken a lot of it down, which wasn’t the plan.
‘This part is along the main access to the woodlands and backs onto houses – no doubt they bought their houses for the nice woodland that they’ve now lost that.’
Everywhere I look in government and councils, I see total ineptitude, yet nobody is ever held responsible. That’s probably because these fools are promoted to their level of incompetence and then remain in that position until they retire on an extremely nice, lucrative pension.
It’s a protected forest for crying out loud, and it’s nesting season. It doesn’t take much logic to realise that they are not cutting down, they are just thinning out the trees just enough so that wildlife can still nest in the trees, but also let enough light through, but then anybody with a brain would have realised this.
This was simply total incompetence, particularly where councils are concerned. Shall we assume that they gave it out to tender and picked the most affordable one to save themselves money, because credible companies don’t absentmindedly chop down the wrong trees?
I’m now wondering if this mistake will be rectified by the arrangement, exclusive to Sherwood Forest of 4 and five-bedroom houses.
So much for going green because they don’t appear to have much respect for our wildlife!
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 