BOSSES at a botanical garden have played down reports that they want to fell 200 trees to create a new car park.

The Royal Horticultural Society's Harlow Carr gardens in Harrogate have submitted a planning application containing a number of options to extend the car parking facilities.

One of the proposals is to cut down about 200 trees in the town's Pinewoods.

But managers at the gardens say it would not be a mass felling.

Marketing manager Alison Williams said: "It would actually be thinning of the pine plantation, not a broad felling.

"The area we are looking at is 0.5 acres of the whole 20 acres. We want to look at it from an environmental perspective and to ensure that although there is a car park in the area, it is still a nature resource."

The woods are owned by Harrogate Borough Council and lie between the Valley Gardens and the botanical gardens.

Councillor Jim Clarke, the council's cabinet member for resources, said he would fight the application all the way.

"This scheme would be environmental vandalism," he said. "I know the society has a parking problem, but chopping down some of the Pine-woods is not the answer.

"The woods are part of Harrogate's heritage and I find it incredible that they should think of such a thing."