The number of emergency road closures due to fallen trees has doubled across two years.

Infrastructure Minister Tim Crookall said that from 2019-20 there were 12 road closures due to this in 2020-21 there were 24.

So far this year, there have been five emergency road closures.

These figures exclude closures instigated by the Emergency Services Joint Control Room as the Department of Infrastructure doesn’t hold that information.

This was in response to a question posed by Arbory, Castletown and Malew MHK Jason Moorhouse in the sitting of Tynwald earlier this week.

Previously, local arborist Ben Brooker told the Isle of Man Examiner that ash dieback disease, caused by fungus which blocks the water transport system in the tree and as a result the leaves wilt and die, could eliminate ‘90% of all ash trees’ in the island over the next ’five to six years’.

The MHK asked how these figures compared with the long-term average and if they were within the expected range.

Mr Crookall said: ‘With regard to them being in the average, looking at this year compared with the last two years I would say it looks as though it is going to be, but it is purely dependent, I would suggest, on the weather.

‘We have no control over that, so we will just have to wait and see at the end of the year. With regard to compared with years before that, I do not have those figures.’

He went on to explain that there is an ongoing programme between the Department of Infrastructure and the Department of Environment, Food and Agriculture that sees trees being removed ‘as quickly as possible’ to reduce risk of accidents and road closures but to also enable new saplings to be planted.

The minister added: ‘We are working together. Surveys have been done of all the diseased trees on the roadside and it is into the long thousands.

‘We are working together to sort that problem out, but obviously it will take an awful long time, and of course a lot of those trees are not owned by the department or by government, they are owned by privateers, so we are having to work with them as well.’

Later on in the sitting, Minister for Environment Clare Barber could not give a number for the amount of trees in the island that are diseased.

Mr Moorhouse also wanted to know if the minister had any information in terms of road closures being caused by trees that were known to be diseased.

‘As regards to those that are diseased, or not, I am sure at the time they do not look at that when they are busy cutting them down in the middle of the night,’ said Mr Crookall.

Meanwhile, people are being encouraged to report diseased trees to help build a better picture of how they are affecting the island’s hedgerows, woodlands and forests. DEFA is asking people to use the ‘tree alert’ app to report any concerns on its website.