Killjoy officials accused of 'nanny state' madness as they take children's conkers

Climbing trees to pick the perfect conker - hard enough to bring glory in playground battles - is a task requiring commitment, good judgement and more than a little courage.

But such is the nature of today's 'nanny state' that children are now being denied this pleasure - as council workers are despatched to pick horse chestnuts from the trees themselves.

They do so in the supposed interests of health and safety.

Rather than risk children damaging themselves or property by collecting conkers, Newcastle Upon Tyne City Council is responding to residents' requests to get to them first.

Taxpayers are funding the operation by the council's environmental services team to use a cherry picker crane to strip trees bare of conkers before children can get their hands on them.

Officials insist it is a sensible safety request and they are only reacting to public demand. But members of the public have been stunned by the sight of the conker-picking team at work.

Martin Callanan, the north-east's Tory MEP, said: "Words fail me. It's the nanny state gone mad. I used to collect conkers as a lad and I never injured myself and nor did any of my friends.

"Children do get injured climbing trees and it is laudable the council wishes to stop that happening but there must be better things they could do with their time. They could clean the streets for a start. ' "It must be costing a fortune. It's a waste of money and a waste of their limited resources." The council has refused to reveal the cost of the operation - which last year led to more than 10 horse chestnut trees being 'picked' before the children.

The conkers are handed to local schools to be used for conker fighting after being collected by council workers.

Steve Charlton, environmental services delivery manager who is responsible for maintaining trees in public spaces, said: "We look after all the trees and picking conkers and things like cherries and pears is part of the service.

"Around September time we tend to start getting a few phone calls about problem conker trees.

"Someone might ring us because there's a horse chestnut tree near their house or property and there's a risk of damage.

"When kids are trying to get the conkers down they can fall and damage cars, or sometimes children throw them at windows and cause damage.

"This is the sort of thing we try to avoid. And also, by taking the conkers off the problem trees it reduces the chances of kids getting hurt if they try to climb them.

"It's not that we don't want children to play with the conkers, it's just that the trees sometimes cause problems that can easily be avoided by taking them off ourselves.

"We don't do it unless someone contacts us about a tree, then we'll go out and have a look at it and decide from there what to do.

A"t the moment we are getting a lot of complaints from residents in the city because of the cherries on the trees.

"They cause a lot of mess and they're very slippy. This means we go out and pick the cherries before they fall."

This is only the latest 'nutty' nanny state conker row in recent years.

In 2004 South Tyneside Borough Council has provoked fury after chopping down chestnut trees to stop kids hurting themselves while gathering conkers.

The same year the headteacher of Cummersdale Primary School in Carlisle, demanded kids wear goggles during conker fights to protect them from flying shards.

Months later headteacher of Bookwell Primary in Egremont, Cumbria, banned conkers from the playground believing chestnuts to be a threat to children with nut allergies.