TOWN councillors are to discuss whether measures can be taken to protect an area of Minehead containing oak trees which may be hundreds of years old.

It follows last week’s Storm Bert bringing down a great oak in Periton Lane which was said to be more than 280 years old.

Local gardener Chris Gates, who has lived in Periton Lane for 20 years, spoke to councillors at their monthly meeting to explain the threat to the trees.

Minehead Mayor Cllr Craig Palmer said the council would need to find out some more information, but the issue could be put on a future meeting agenda.

Mr Gates said there were a number of other heritage trees in the area which were being undermined by erosion and the installation of gabion baskets was needed to protect them.

He said based on the £10,000 cost of clearing a three-tonne landslide which occurred about 10 years ago, it would have required possibly £180,000 to remove the 50 tonnes of mud left by another landslide in September of last year.

The current landslide which saw the fall of the great oak involved an estimated 200 tonnes of soil, equating to another £720,000 clean-up operation.

Mr Gates said adding costs together gave a sum of nearly £1 million, which he believed would be more than his proposed gabion basket solution to stabilise the lane.

He believed without taking action now, the upper section of the road would collapse within a decade, while erosion was now within three feet of the footpath section which could already be unstable.

Other oak trees at risk included one near the exit of The Holloway which was calculated to be 195 years old, having germinated in 1828, and which had a tree protection order placed on it in April.

Mr Gates said he had a 20-inch oak sapling grown from an acorn of the great oak and several hazels also from Periton Lane which he wanted to plant there, but not until the embankment was cleared.

He said: “To me, more than any other symbol the great oaks represent England, and, like this great oak, England’s destiny stands precarious on the edge of an abyss.”

The great oak was estimated to have germinated in 1741, during the reign of King George II, when Handel was composing his oratorio ‘Messiah’.

Mr Gates said he wanted Somerset Council to designate Periton Lane’s embankments as a local nature reserve and plant them with indigenous trees as he had done himself during the past 20 years to try to stop the erosion.

He said it had been suggested the embankment could be planted with wisteria or clematis and other fragrant plants and blossom trees which could turn the lane into a spectacular tourist attraction to rival Japan’s Kawachi Fujien Wisteria Garden.

Mr Gates appealed for people to lobby their local councillors to press for action to be taken.

He said the great oaks would outlive them all, and it was ‘a tragedy to lose even one’.