THIRTY mature trees have been chopped down without warning by a Horwich company.

A concerned gardener who saw the trees being felled called the council but an emergency preservation came too late.

By the time the order was served on the skip company which owns the land in Albert Street only two trees were left standing.

Council officials rushed to stop the workmen using chainsaws to cut sycamore and ash trees at the end of Albert Street, after a school gardener, Joseph Coleman, raised the alarm.

A spokesman for Bolton Council said: "The council took action to obtain an emergency tree preservation order as soon as possible but by the time it was served all but two of the trees had been cut down."

Mr Coleman, gardener at Rivington and Blackrod High School which overlooks the trees, said: "I heard lots of chainsaws and asked if there were any preservation orders on the trees.

"The workmen said no so I called the Town Hall and told them what was going on.

"These trees must have been 100 years old and now almost everyone of them is gone - it's sacrilege.

"I can't see one logical reason why they have been chopped down."

The trees stood on land owned by John Kenneth Dickinson, but no-one at the materials recycling company would comment.

One workman on the site said he thought the trees were rotten.

Trees that stand on private land are not protected by law until a tree preservation order is made.

According to Cllr Donald Carr, who sits on the planning committee at Bolton Council, developers who chop down trees are a growing problem.

He said: "They seem to to chop them down before the authorities can estimate their value. The same thing happened in Grange Road last year. Twenty-five trees went down over one very wet Christmas weekend. So many have gone now.

"It is only when the trees are gone that people notice there is a hole in the environment."

He urged people who value a particular tree to protect it by seeking a preservation order - provided it does not already stand on council land.