SHOPPING arcade owners have had to apply for planning permission to fell enormous Leylandii trees which they have already cut down.

Pensions fund Suffolk Life Annuities, which owns the Regents Arcade Shopping Mall in Wantage, said it was only told after lopping the huge, invasive trees, that it needed permission to chop down the trees because the site is in the Wantage Town Centre Conservation Area.

It has also applied for planning permission to rebuild a boundary wall in the yard at the back of the arcade which the trees had been damaging.