AN UNEXPECTED windfall has brought £7,000 worth of extra expense to Kingsmead in the form of diseased poplar trees and intertwined phone lines.

High winds brought down one of 11 poplars on Kingsmead Parish Council’s northern boundary, near London Road and Sir John Deane’s College, revealing a trunk of spongy timber.

The £3,790 cost of felling the trees is almost doubled with the added complication of phone lines running between them.

Clr Andrew Murison brought in pieces of the trunk to show to fellow councillors at the latest parish council meeting.

“It’s spongy,” he said.

“If that tree fell over the other 10 will probably be in the same situation.

“To fell 10 poplar trees the quote is £3,790 but the bad news is that BT telephone wires are winding their way through them – the wires have been there and the trees have grown up around them.”

Clr Murison said there were two options to fell the trees with the easiest option being to chop them at the base and the longer and more expensive method being to climb each tree and take it down in sections from the top down.

He added BT has quoted more than £3,400 to take down between six and eight cables before the felling and then put them up again afterwards.

“When you look up the trees there’s a bulbous thing that looks like a nest but it isn’t, it’s fungus,” he said.

He added: “It will be £7,231 in total but we’ve got to get these trees down.

“The tree fellers are programmed to come and work in the woodland on January 6 and they are divertable.

“We’ve got no option but to do it.”