VILLAGERS are fighting plans to chop down a group of trees because they believe they improve a conservation area.

Agents for North Yorkshire County Council want to build an access into a land-locked woodland and paddock site next to Stockton Hall Hospital, at Stockton-on-Forest, near York.

The scheme would involve the felling of four trees, as well as the demolition of a wall alongside a layby on the village's main street.

Residents are also concerned that the application might be the thin end of the wedge and would be followed later by another application seeking to build homes in a nearby paddock. They said this would lead to extra traffic emerging on to the busy main street through the village.

A spokesman for the county council said land owned by the authority was reviewed from time to time. It had been decided to seek conservation area consent to provide independent access into the three-acre paddock site. This would involve the demolition of four "immature" trees.