Swansea Council begins removal of diseased trees on Mayals Road

The removal of trees on Mayals Road has begun, with Swansea Council saying that they will replace them with 50 semi-mature trees.

"We carried out a tree survey of Mayals Road which found that of 127 trees, 19 of them were diseased or dying and had to be removed to prevent them collapsing of their own accord," the Council wrote in a Facebook post.

"Five of the trees were Ash trees and had Ash Dieback, a condition affecting tens of thousands of ash trees across the UK for which there is no cure."

Ashe Dieback is a fungal disease that affects ash trees by blocking the water transport systems, causing leaf loss, lesions in the wood and on the bark. This leads to the dieback of the crown of the tree.

The Council has said that plans are in place to replace all the felled trees with semi-mature trees, using funding from the Active Travel scheme which will create a new cycle route along the street.

The replanting of the trees is expected to be completed following the construction of a 1.6km hybrid cycle lane which is being created either side of the road, linking Swansea seafront and Gower Common.

Among the list of species of trees to be replanted are 20 Sweetgum trees and 19 Maple trees of different variety.

Other trees to feature in the scheme include Himalayan Birch, Small Leaf Lime and River Birch.

The Council also aims to develop a further link along Clyne Common to link up the with the Bishopston community, providing a single route between Swansea Bay and Gower.

Mark Thomas, Cabinet Member for Environment Enhancement & Infrastructure Management, said: "All of our completed Active Travel schemes we have developed across Swansea have been developed sensitively taking into account the natural environment.

"The scheme along Mayals Road is no different and in fact we believe we will be improving the route by increasing the total number of trees along its length.

"The variety of tree species we have selected will complement those already established and will replace the small number of trees which have sadly succumbed to disease."

Some residents questioned the decision in response to Swansea Council's Facebook post.

"The trouble is you replace these big trees with 'semi mature' trees of species that will never grow big so every time you intervene, we lose overall biomass," Jules Woodhell wrote.

However, others agreed with the decision.

"Ash dieback is dreadful, look around you, the trees are dying from the top down. Noticed it more and more in the summer," Llinos Smith wrote.

"At least they can't hurt anyone by falling naturally now," Kate Holv added.

Swansea Council said that they are surveying all the Ash trees in Swansea.

Find out more here.