Families are furious they are having to look out on power station cooling towers after a hedgerow was cut down outside their homes.

Householders on the Ladygrove estate at Didcot are fed up after contractors hacked back the hedgerow, which was almost 15ft high.

Resident Jill Ashworth said that as well as shielding views of Didcot Power Station, the hedge and trees provided a natural screen to avoid being overlooked by houses on Halse Water and Dearne Place.

She said: "Early morning birdsong from robins, sparrows and magpies in the hedge have been silenced after the contractors' chainsaws did their worst." South Oxfordshire District Council said it had been coppicing the 150 yard hedgerow next to a new cycleway and footpath in order to encourage healthy growth.

But mum-of-four Mrs Ashworth, who has lived at Halse Water for more than four years, said: "Nothing is left except sawn-off stumps that have been uprooted or are barely visible above ground level. To make matters worse, it was destroyed while birds were nesting." But David Baldwin, of Babtie, which acts as consultant for the district council, said: "The whole idea is not to demolish the hedge and leave it grassed and bare. The intention of the coppicing is to re-invigorate growth.

Along with new planting, Mr Baldwin predicted it would grow back within four years.

Mr Baldwin said the hedge and a ditch were overgrown with brambles and choked with dead elm trees and rubbish. He added that it was a danger to pedestrians and cyclists and had to be cleared.