One witness called tree cutting along a track near him as “total mass destruction” as it was revealed that Network Rail launched a secretive felling operation putting millions of trees at risk.
Ray Walton, who saw hundreds of trees being chopped down along the length of track between Christchurch and Bournemouth said: “These trees were mature 30-foot-high trees which have been there for 50 years in some cases and never caused a problem. This went far beyond reasonable management of the trees.”
The scale of the potential destruction outlined in a Network Rail blueprint involves 10m trees growing within 60 metres of track.
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