A group of neighbours in Hertfordshire are furious after an unknown culprit chopped down a tree and left it lying in the middle of the road - apparently looking to blame the felling on Storm Eunice. You can see the state the tree was left in below:
They discovered the tree surrounded by sawdust and embedded with chainsaw cut marks in Panshanger, Welwyn Garden City, following the storm on Friday (18 February).
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Eunice has torn trees from the ground across the country - providing the mystery chopper with the perfect excuse to dispose of the unwanted birch.
Although apparently they thought a pile of sawdust around a tree supposedly felled by strong winds wouldn't look suspicious.
One local said they first noticed it at about 10.30pm or 11pm on Friday night.
She said: “It had definitely come down that day. It wasn’t like that when I left to go to work in the morning.
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“The next morning I went and had an investigation, where I spotted it was clean cut, sawdust all over the floor and the tree is in the middle of the road, lying there.
“You can’t just chop a tree down and leave it in the middle of the road – it’s just unacceptable.
“I don’t wanna wake up, walk out the front door and see someone lying dead halfway through their windscreen because someone’s chopped a tree down."
She also claimed the area was only lightly affected by the storm.
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She said: “I think they took advantage of the adverse weather conditions because there’s trees coming down left, right and centre.
“But around our area there wasn’t even a small branch come down.
“It’s a bit of a liberty to try to palm it off as ‘the wind has done it’ and leave it in the middle of the road.”
Another neighbour said: “What kind of chainsaw-wielding maniac goes out looking to play lumberjack when there’s a red storm warning?
“It’s obvious they wanted the tree gone and thought we’d all be too stupid to notice the clean cut marks and the mountain of sawdust.”
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Images from the scene show a police road closure in place but Herts Police said nothing indicated a crime had been committed and the road has now been cleared.
One neighbour said “I would’ve thought they would investigate just from seeing the sawdust because as soon as I’d seen the sawdust I was like ‘they’ve obviously cut that down’.
“It’s got to be wilful destruction of property – or there must be some law surrounding it one way or the other.
“It was extremely annoying to see.”
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Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council, which maintains trees in the area, confirmed its employees had not felled the tree.
A spokesperson said: "Our tree officers have inspected the site and it appears that someone other than the council has felled the tree.
"The details have been passed on to Hertfordshire County Council (HCC) for them to clear."
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Charlie Metcalfe