A TREE lover has taken up the task of watering saplings herself amid claims Tendring Council has neglected them.

Marianne Lungley, a tree warden for Harwich and Dovercourt, said she had been taking gallons of water to sites where the authority has planted trees.

The 68-year-old said: “We have been doing the watering.

“Although it hasn’t been a deadly dry summer, you have to water them.

“They need water once a day.”

Mrs Lungley says the council told her the trees, in Low Road, Harbour Crescent, Cliff Park, Two Village School and the Fryatt Hosptial, have to fend for themselves.

She has recruited Community Representative Party members John Brown and Steven Henderson to help until a solution is found.

Nigel Brown, Tendring Council’s communications manager, said the council was concerned to learn of the issue with the trees in Dovercourt, but watering them was never part of the maintenance programme.

He said: “A water-retaining gel was incorporated into the planting and a method was followed which had proved successful in the past.

“One-year-old trees were used and planted in a way that the roots would go down to find the moisture, rather than watering so that the roots are encouraged on the surface.”

Mr Brown said it was always expected there would be some casualties and natural wastage in such a large programme, and it is also possible some of the trees could have died for reasons other than a lack of water.

He added: “If Mrs Lungley contacts the council’s horticultural services manager we will arrange for an officer to meet her on site to discuss the situation.”