VANDALS have targeted Worcester's beautiful High Street trees - mindlessly ripping lumps from them.

In one random incident, a yob managed to rip out the entire trunk of a tree down the busy thoroughfare only to get away with it because of poor quality CCTV.

Last year Worcester City Council spent £700,000 of taxpayers' money on the latest renaissance efforts on the High Street, which came complete with resurfacing between the Elgar Statue and Pump Street.

Several months ago a raft of new ornamental cherry trees were then planted along the route as part of the ongoing work to keep it looking its best.

But the council says some of the trees have targeted by hoodlums, insisting it would have taken "considerable effort" to have caused the damage.

Geoff Poole, the city's tree protection officer, has compiled a report spelling out the problems it has caused.

It has been condemned by the chairman of the council's planning committee, who has told vandals to "leave our trees alone".

In one incident, a tree around one foot in width was literally snapped in half by what is believed to have been a reveller.

He was caught on CCTV, but it was not good enough footage to capture key details.

Mr Poole said it was tricky enough getting the new trees into place because of the complicated underground cables down the High Street.

In his report, he said: "Size constraints dictated the size of the trees that could be planted from, because of that underground infrastructure.

"This has led to some unfortunate vandalism where the trees were

snapped off.

"It would have taken some considerable effort by the perpetrators, even though the tree stems were relatively small."

He said he hopes "the phase has passed" and that the growth in the tree stems should "withstand such acts of vandalism" in future.

Councillor Geoff Williams, planning committee chairman, said: "This is very unfortunate - our message to the vandals is, leave our trees in the High Street alone."

The new trees planted earlier this year were the Prunus 'Sunset Boulevard' variety, renowned for their attractive spring flowers and stunning autumn leaf colour.

Mr Poole's report also said over the last year, 10 requests to do some kind of work on trees in Worcester, including felling or pruning, were refused by the city council.