Charnwood Borough Council - Leading in Leicestershire

A MYSTERY disease is affecting mature Oak trees at a Charnwood Borough Council-owned beauty spot.

Around 200 trees at Booth Wood, which is off Hurstwood Road, in Loughborough, are showing symptoms of the lethal infection.

The disease has all the hallmarks of Phytophthora ramorum, a condition known in the USA as Sudden Oak Death – but it rarely infects English Oak trees.

Now samples are being sent to the Forestry Commission in a bid to discover what the disease is – and if the other uninfected trees can be saved.

At least one or two trees have died from the unknown infection each year since 2002 – but it is now spreading rapidly through the four-acre wood.

Black weeping cankers can be found on the majority of trunks and when these have appeared in the past, the trees have died within12 months.

Oak trees in a small coppice across the road from Booth Wood are also showing signs of the unidentified infection – but, as far as is known, no other trees in Charnwood have developed symptoms.

Mark Graham, Charnwood Borough Council’s Wildlife Officer, said there was no risk to public health from the pathogen infecting the trees.

He added: “The majority of Oak trees in the wood are now displaying signs of this infection and we are waiting for the spring to see how many come into leaf.

“A sample of the infected material is being sent to the Forestry Commission to be analysed and, hopefully, we will have more idea of what we are dealing with – but when the symptoms appear, tree death does seems to follow quite quickly.

“Oaks are the most valuable trees we have from an environmental and, for many people, an aesthetic point of view. A mature Oak tree can support 500 different insects, animals and other plants.

“The worst-case scenario is that all the oaks in the wood will succumb to the disease and will have to be felled, which would be devastating for local wildlife.

“There is nothing else on this scale elsewhere in the Borough that we are aware of.”

Booth Wood, which was once part of the Garendon Estate, has been owned by Charnwood Borough Council since the 1970s and is a popular attraction with local residents and dog walkers.

Cllr Sandie Gough, Charnwood’s Cabinet member for Leisure and Environment, added: “We are devastated by this finding and doing all we can to find a way of preventing others from infection.

“We would like to replace those that have died but we're told it might not be possible if replacement Oaks are susceptible to the infection.

"We will know more when we receive the results back from Forestry Commission but my greatest concern is that we could lose an important feature of the local landscape and that it could spread further.”