FURIOUS neighbours living alongside a railway line have slammed Network Rail as "environmental vandals" for cutting down hundreds of trees and bushes along an embankment.

Residents in Ambleside Drive, near Southend East train station, say they are angry because they were not warned prior to the mass felling and have been given no explanation by the company since it carried out the work.

Bosses at Network Rail said the work, which affects an area about 200m east from the station, was done because the trees had grown too large and had become a danger to overhead power lines.

Andrew Briffet, 40, of Ambleside Drive, said: "Network Rail has absolutely butchered the entire woodland from Southend East station down the track.

"From large trees to small bushes, they have removed everything - there's nothing left.

"It's wholesale destruction - it looks like a war scene.

"My children loved watching the wildlife playing about in the trees, but my daughter Holly asked me Where have all the squirrels gone?'.

"No one can believe they've done it without letting anybody know first."

Neighbours said the narrow green corridor had long been home to a wide variety of wild animals.

Among the species residents say they have seen there down the years are badgers, foxes, squirrels, woodpeckers and bats.

They also said the trees and bushes there provided a barrier between their gardens and the railway and the trains which zoom along it.

Lea Robson, also from Ambleside Drive, said: "We residents are truly horrified at the prospect of losing such a valuable wildlife corridor and natural green screen.

"This is simply environmental vandalism."

A Network Rail spokesman, who did not want to be named, said: "It is essential that we cut back vegetation to ensure the safe and reliable running of the railway.

"In this instance the trees behind Ambleside Drive have been removed as they were growing into the overhead lines, posing a direct safety risk.

"A considered assessment is carried out by experts before clearance work is undertaken and only vegetation which is a health and safety risk to the railway is removed."

In 2006, residents living near the railway line raised concerns about a similar bout of tree-felling which took place from Westcliff to Southend but stopped at Southend East.