EFFORTS to plant a Millennium wood at Kendal Castle will press ahead despite months of "systematic vandalism" on young saplings.

More than 1,100 trees were planted on the north side of Castle Hill last year by Kendal Civic Society to mark the Millennium.

But within weeks trees were being uprooted in their hundreds and left lying on the hillside.

Today only 100 of the oak, ash and silver birch trees are still standing.

Secretary Patricia Hovey said the society was looking at alternative sites on Castle Hill for a new batch of 350 trees.

"You cannot abandon a project when it is already up and running.

We still have 100 trees on the castle.

We have not given up," she said.

"This has been an act of systematic vandalism; it is not just kids.

Whoever did it did not even want the trees for their garden, they were just left there."

Mrs Hovey said: "We wanted to offer people walking up the castle a different habitat.

It would have been gorgeous - a nice little glade with bluebells and primroses, but somebody or some persons do not want that to happen.

It is so sad because this wood was meant for the people of Kendal."

Lowther Forestry Services, which was contracted to supply saplings for the Millennium wood, has offered the society 350 new trees to plant on Castle Hill as part of a yearly programme to replace trees which have died off over the summer.

South Lakeland District Council owns the land on Castle Hill, and members of

the leisure and amenities committee this week backed proposals for a new, smaller wood planted elsewhere at the castle.

Committee chairman Phil Lister told the meeting he was "staggered and ashamed" to have to report the vandalism to the committee and Coun Philip Ball recommended that a letter be sent to the police expressing the committee's concern.

The civic society is debating where the trees would have the best chance of survival, chairman Dr John Satchell told the Gazette.

He said the society was reluctant to plant more trees if they were to "suffer the fate of those that had been planted before", and would consult residents before any major replanting began.