A NUMBER of trees at the popular Ledbury beauty spot of Dog Hill Wood may be showing signs of ash die-back disease which, in the worse cases, can decimate woodlands.

However, the town council, which owns the ancient wood, has been advised not to panic.

Martin Eager, chairman of the town's environment and leisure committee, says there is "no danger of the wood being cut down".

This is because more and more ash trees in the UK are showing resistance to the disease than would have been the case ten years ago.

Cllr Eager said: "We have been told not to panic, and we are not panicking. We are not particularly worried about it."

The advice follows talks with the wood's coppicing contractor and also with the town council's own tree warden; and the present course of action is simply to carry out a "watching brief" at the wood, which overlooks Ledbury, to see how the situation develops.

There are not plans at present to quarantine the wood and stop people from using it, and there are no plans to start cutting down trees.

Cllr Eager added that cutting down trees in any case, could help to spread fungal spores which lead to ash dieback.

He added: "There is no plan to cut down ash trees. It's a case of wait and see. You can't really tell which trees might have it until the summer, when you might get the withered leaves."

Another signs are lesions on stems and branches.

Online Forestry Commission advice on the disease states: "We do know that dieback of ash has potential to cause significant damage to the UK's ash population.

"It has caused widespread damage to ash populations in continental Europe, where experience indicates that it can kill young ash trees quite quickly, while older trees can resist it for some time until prolonged exposure, or another pest or pathogen attacking them in their weakened state, eventually causes them to succumb."

The situation is potentially particularly serious for Dog Hill Wood, which is popular with dog walkers, because the majority of trees there are ash and sycamore.

Ash dieback is a chronic fungal disease of ash trees in Europe and is characterised by leaf loss and crown dieback in infected trees.

The fungus was only scientifically identified back in 2006, but it is now widespread Europe.

It was first identified in the UK as recently as 2012.