The tree is a sycamore (I believe), and is at the southern boundary of my garden. There is no TPO on it. It is about 35 years old and is around 50 to 60 feet high, with a horizontal spread of around 50 feet across my garden and my easterly neighbour's garden in No. 3. I understand it could grow to 100 feet high with a 100 feet horizontal spread. For many years I and my near neighbours (in house-numbers 2 and 3) have been alarmed at the prospect of its continual growth, for a number of reasons. In summer it casts a very long shadow onto five of the houses and gardens, thus affecting plant growth and access to sunlight. My neigbour in No.2 says that it has produced suckers all over his garden. It blocks more and more of the view of the RIdgeway that many of us here bought our houses to look at. On two occasions a branch has fallen from it onto my garden, but fortunately no-one was near it at the time. My neighbour in No. 3 has three children and he worries about them being under it. If it came down in a storm it would cause great damage. I am a pensioner with very limited means and I worry greatly about the expense of trying to maintain such a huge tree in the years to come. All of my neighbours, in the houses numbered 1, 2, 3, 4 (myself), and 5, would like it to be felled, with perhaps another much smaller tree planted nearby. There are no other houses or even foot-paths that have a view of the tree. So it is an "amenity" only for these houses. and all of them regard it as a problem, not as an an amenity. So the purpose of my application is to ask permission to fell the tree.

4 Holborn Hill, Letcombe Bassett, Wantage, OX12 9LU