Concern is growing in nearby roads over a council plan to fell trees at the Warley Hospital site.

Brentwood Borough Council's landscape and environment manager, Steve Plumb, has asked the council's own planning department for permission to chop down trees to "eradicate weed species to allow indigenous species to develop".

The authority says it wants to fell sycamores, in order to stop them "taking over" the woodland. But there is concern in nearby Firsgrove Road and Firsgrove Crescent that the plan overrides a wide-ranging tree preservation order (TPO) on the site.

Some residents fear the move could endanger the future of the whole woodland, which they see as protecting their privacy and blocking out noise.

And an anonymous letter is circulating in the two roads saying residents should "vehemently" oppose the plan.

It raises the possibility that at some time in the future the land could be cleared and sold for development.

The council says it has received telephone calls from people worried about the proposals.

Arboricultural officer, Andrew Laing, said: "This is a matter of slowly getting rid of the sycamores there. We are not going to just rush in and fell a lot of trees.

"It will be done over a period of time so that it does not affect the overall look of the woodland. Sycamores are regarded as weeds because they take over at the expense of native trees. It is something we have been doing in all our woods for a number of years."

The site contains a mix of trees, including oak and beech. Sycamores are not native to Britain.

The anonymous letter, delivered to homes, says the application does not identify specific trees, and so must apply to all of them. It says: "The worrying aspect here is that the land may be cleared to be sold for future development."

It urges people to write to the council to object to the plan.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.