SPRING could pass Redbridge by this year because the council is felling blossoming cherry trees which they claim are diseased.

Residents are upset that mature and seemingly healthy trees in Clayhall, South Woodford and Wanstead are being cut down without any reasonable explanation.

Botanist Richard Cooper, of Gordon Road, Wanstead, said the council was more likely to be chopping them down because of "paranoia" over health and safety.

He added: "It's crazy. Who would take down a fully-flowering tree for any reason, other than if it had be a participant in a traffic accident?

"It is no use asking for replacements for perfectly ideal street trees, for this council is planting really unsuitable street trees in their place.

"Are they selling off the cherry wood for veneer?"

The Government has just published a survey of urban trees detailing a big reduction' in the number of young trees over the past 15 years.

It found that 11 per cent nationwide were between 50 and 100 years old while only two per cent were more than a century old.

Anne Williams, of Wans-tead and Woodford Friends of the Earth, said: "The council contractors don't have a clue about when to cut trees and there seems to be no control on what they do.

"In Wanstead they devastated an acer tree in Gordon Road and another in Chaucer Road. They say that they are diseased but they are not at all."

Wanstead ward councillor Alan Burgess said he was similarly puzzled, adding: "I have noticed around the borough that trees have been knocked down and quite often I can't work out why.

"I always have a look at the stump to see if there's disease and often can't see any."

A spokesman for Redbridge Council said it was removing all dead and structurally dangerous trees from roads, and not just the cherry trees.

He added: "As the trees we are removing are dead or contain rot or decay they would not be of an adequate quality for veneer.

"The felled tree material is transferred to Chigwell Road depot for recycling.

"In locations where trees are removed, works are programmed to plant new trees by the end of the March planting season.

"Replacement species include cherry, birch, mountain ash, alder and oak."

But a furious Mr Cooper remained unsatisfied.

He said: "Redbridge will still hold its place in infamy for its almost total non-understanding of environmental issues where these relate to quality of life, harmony of the surrounding environment, and, of course, common sense."