A TREE was blown down by strong winds — after a workman had chopped part of the tree’s root.

The tree fell just days after a Virgin Media worker had been in Tern Avenue, Farnworth, to replace a phone line.

A spokesman for the company said that the engineer visited the area on August 5 and had to remove a small piece of the tree’s root during the job.

He said: “Part of the cable was close to a small root of a nearby tree and we had to remove a tiny bit of it in order to complete the work. No significant damage was caused to the tree and the cable was reburied.”

A Bolton Council contractor who came to remove the tree said the “severed root” and high winds on August 10 were the likely cause of it falling.

Resident Stewart Crowther, aged 63, said: “I actually wouldn’t have noticed the tree because I always use my back door to leave the house, but my neighbour just rang me up and said ‘look in your garden.’