National Park and Council chiefs have struck a deal to prevent a court clash over the unauthorised lopping of two 100-year-old trees.

North Yorkshire County Council and the Yorkshire Dales National Park were due to square-up in a magistrate's court over the tree-chopping error at Embsay Primary School, near Skipton.

But a last-minute settlement has been agreed, delivering a surprise windfall to 156 children at the school.

The County Council has promised to buy pupils a small weather station, an interactive CD and replace their trees - a total package of £1,000.

The deal follows a dispute sparked when tree surgeons, working on behalf of the Council, were told to stop felling three trees in the summer holiday. Two, which were left stripped of their branches, were described as looking like totem poles.

YDNP chief executive, Heather Hancock, said: "We were faced with the option of costly legal proceedings, which the public would have paid for, or finding a solution."

The settlement was reached after the authority wrote to the County Council threatening to prosecute unless it received proposals detailing what it would do to compensate the school.

Geoff Garrett, YDNP trees and woodlands officer, said the trees were in a conservation area and the Council should have given six weeks' notification of the plan to fell them to allow the National Park time to consider taking out tree protection orders. When the park was alerted that the felling had started it asked the Council to stop the work.

Council solicitor, Geoff Fell, said a report on the condition of the trees said they should be felled because they were a danger to pupils. He added: "We accept that no action should have been taken until the matter had been considered by the national park authority. But the safety of the pupils was paramount in our thinking."

Embsay primary school headteacher Joe Grose said he had warned the Council about the state of the trees and his fear they could be a danger to children. When he returned from his holiday he found the trees lopped and in a sorry state.

He added: "We have not received the promised equipment yet but we are quite happy with the outcome.''

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