RESIDENTS and business people have reacted with fury to the recent felling of a plane tree in Devizes Market Place and have sworn to defend the remaining four.

Kennet District Council says the trees are in poor condition and will have to be replaced sooner or later. The trees are being replaced as part of a refurbishment of the Market Place.

The tree between the Market Cross and Lloyds Bank came down the Sunday before last after it was found to be infected with fungus and considered unsafe by Kennet's forestry officers.

The others one by the Market Cross and the other three around the fountain will remain until next autumn.

Kennet is to replace them with four new London Plane trees, already semi-mature and nine metres tall, three metres higher than the present trees. It is estimated the replanting will cost £3,000 a tree.

But residents are not convinced the trees need replacing and are launching a campaign to save them.

Newsagent Tony Duck, bank manager Nigel Holman, chemist Andy Rugg and local resident Mark Wickham attacked the felling of the tree and opposed any further loss of trees.

It said: "These actions fly in the face of the clearly stated views of a large number of residents in the area. Last autumn 2,405 people signed a petition for the retention of the trees and a public meeting attended by almost 100 people, including Kennet councillors, unanimously called for the trees to remain.

"We recognise that councillors are representatives and not delegates, they must take decisions in the light of the best information available to them.

"However, when those decisions are clearly at odds with the views of a substantial number of their electorate they have a duty to explain themselves."

A report commissioned last year by Mr Wickham from Marshfield tree specialist Nigel de Berker said the trees, with the exception of the one felled last week, were fairly healthy specimens and could expect to have at least another 100 years of life in them.

Mr Holman, manager of HSBC, said: "No one's saying they're perfect but they are part of the heritage of Devizes so why change them?

"We get the feeling they are in the way of the changes Kennet wants to make to the Market Place, but you don't knock down a building just because it is in the wrong place."

Eight trees were planted in the Market Place in 1879, four round the Market Cross and four round the fountain. One lasted a very short time and two disappeared during the Second World War.