A MOTHER has accused council chiefs of putting a tree before the life of her son.

Bosses at Southampton City Council have refused to chop down a 60-year-old copper beech in Balwinder Sandhu's front garden, despite her desperate plea that it could kill her ten-year-old disabled son Karan. She says pollen and tiny flies from the protected tree, which towers over her house, are blocking Karan's tracheotomy tube and causing him severe breathing problems.

"The council are asking my son to die and are keeping the tree for their own enjoyment," said the mum-of-four.

"It's our home and the tree is on our property. We can't understand how it's more important for the local residents to see the tree than for our suffering to be considered."

The Sandhu family moved to the home in Stoddart Avenue, Bitterne a month ago, having lived for several years in the property next door.

They say the council told them there was no Tree Preservation Order on the massive beech, which reaches as high as the roof and touches the walls of the house.

After just a few days in the new home, Karan fell ill.

Mrs Sandhu realised something was stuck in his airway - and then noticed that the tree was swarming with white flies and bugs.

NHS advice warns parents about fur, feather, grit or sand getting inside the tracheotomy tube, and suggests covering the opening loosely with a scarf.

But Mrs Sandhu says Karan fears he will suffocate with anything near his airway, and he refuses to wear a covering. When Karan was six months old he developed pneumonia which affected his airway. Doctors had to carry out the tracheotomy when he was a year old. He also has development problems and cannot feed himself or communicate easily.

She applied to planners to have the tree chopped down, but was then told that there actually was a TPO on the beech, dating back to 1995.

At a meeting of the city's planning committee to overturn the order, Mrs Sandhu said: "My son is suffering every day, all the time. He is frightened of the tree, and we can't live like this.

"Through the winter we have to keep Karan indoors to protect his airways. He does not enjoy the winter, but summer is his time to run around. We would not have moved if we had known there was an order on this tree."

The family even carried out door-to-door inquiries in the street, in which the majority of homeowners backed the plan to fell the tree.

But council tree expert Nick Yeats told the meeting that the important beech was a valuable part of the street scene - and even though it was infested with flies, it would recover. The Planning and Rights of Way Panel agreed by four votes to none to refuse the bid to chop down the tree. There was one abstention.