CHARITY the Woodland Trust has announced that a Scottish town has the worst fly-tipping and litter problem of its 1000-plus sites around the UK – with trees facing the chop because of a disease spread through dumped garden waste.

Some 25 beech and sycamore trees in Livingston are dead or dying from Phytophthora cambivora – a fungal infection.

A total of 10 have already been felled and 15 more need to be.

The trees have been deemed a risk to public safety because they may drop limbs or topple over as they die.

Once the felling is complete the area will be replanted with native shrub and small tree species that are not susceptible to the infection, including willow, hazel and hawthorn.

“It is heartbreaking that we have to lose much-loved big old trees like this,” said Woodland Trust Scotland’s site manager Jean Frame.

“We would appeal to residents to make the fly-tipping habit history in 2019. Woodland adds so much to the character of the community; it would be tragic to lose more of it because of such selfishness. We implore people not to dump garden waste in our woods – or any other woods.”

Woodland Trust manages 60 woods across Scotland. New figures released today show that in 2018 it spent £23,508 on clearing up litter and fly-tipping at its Scottish woods.

A total of £16,716 was spent clearing waste from woods in Livingston. That figure would have been even higher had it not been for the valiant efforts of more than 100 volunteers, including children, who helped remove 16 skips of waste.

The charity has more than 1000 sites across the whole of the UK and the total 2018 clean-up bill ran to £200,578.

Woodland Trust Scotland spokesman George Anderson said: “That is money we could be spending on planting new woods or working with children to give them an appreciation of nature.”