“Mr Burgess, head of the commission's plant health service, said it and its partner organisations had moved quickly in 2002 to deal with the infection to try to prevent it from spreading.”
“"It always takes you by surprise when you investigate a previously unknown disease and find out that almost half of your tree population may already be infected," he told BBC News.”
“He said that a few thousand trees were known to have been cut down by local authorities amid fears that infected trees would pose a risk to the public.”
