Club ‘shocked’ to find 91 trees stolen

A golf club has said it is in a state of shock after 91 trees were stolen from its course.

Staff at Crane Valley Golf Club in Dorset turned up to work at 5.45am to find that each leylandii tree had been dug up from its roots and taken overnight. The trees were all between five and seven feet tall.

Despite the effort involved in carrying out the extraordinary crime, which also involved using bolt cutters to get through the front gate, police believe the value of the trees combined is less than £900.

Andrew Blackwell, operations manager for Hoburne Golf, which runs three English golf clubs including Crane Valley, said staff were surprised about what happened.

“It was certainly a bit of a shock to find 91 trees had been dug up and taken overnight,” he said.

“We planted more than 300 trees last October and lots of members and visitors had commented on how good they looked.

“Unfortunately, because of the weather we have been having, the ground would have been soft and although they had been in the ground for six months, the roots would still have been quite shallow.”

Crane Valley resides in the town of Verwood, and a police spokesman said that this was the second case of tree theft in that town this month – previously 50 trees were stolen in a raid on a private address. However, Bournemouth’s Daily Echo has said that police are not linking the two crimes.