Sir - In March, Oxford City Council adopted a new policy to improve inspection of tens of thousands of trees, and how it decides whether to prune or fell any unsafe ones.

Twelve diseased trees in Headington have been felled under this new policy, but a protestor claims this was wrong because they "looked healthy" on the outside (Report, July 4).

I manage a parish churchyard with 18 trees. In 2006, one collapsed without warning. Its trunk looked healthy but was riddled with hoof fungus. The tree hit a car that luckily escaped damage. Had it hit any of the children who use our church, the tragedy would still haunt us today.

The city council has been less fortunate. In 1999, it found disease in a chestnut tree in Gloucester Street, and listed it for felling by 2001. But the chestnut was not felled and in 2002 it collapsed, tragically killing a young woman and injuring her two sisters.

In 2006, the city felled 11 diseased willows on Osney and replaced them with healthy ones. Protestors claimed four of them could have been retained and pollarded. A mixture of pollarding and new planting would have made ecological and aesthetic sense on an informal rural riverbank, but would have spoiled the formal neatness of terraced East Street and its riverside.

In the recent redevelopment of Wyatt Road, Oxford's tree officers helped to ensure retention of a clump including a magnificent walnut tree. Whenever the churchyard that I manage has lost trees to disease or drought, council tree officers have advised me on replacements that will resist drought and increase biodiversity.

Ecclesiastes wrote "For everything there is a seasona time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted". Oxford's tree officers love trees, and their decisions are usually good ones.

Hugh Jaeger, Oxford