THIEVES have stolen 300 specialised Christmas trees from High Legh Garden Centre.

Staff discovered the trees were missing when they arrived for work at the centre on Halliwell’s Brow on Thursday, November 28.

The trees, which are Nordmann Firs, were stolen sometime after the garden centre closed on Wednesday evening, November 27 and before it reopened the following morning.

They are a special kind of fir tree which don’t shed their needles and are between 5.5 ft and 7ft in height.

Neil Phelps is the manager of High Legh Garden Centre.

He said: “The garden centre is next to private woodland and the thieves took down the fence so they could drive the vehicles on to the land and then on to our site.

“They stole 300 Nordmann fir trees sometime during the night.”

The thieves would have visited the site numerous times during the night, due to the large number of trees stolen, and Cheshire Police are asking shoppers to be aware of people selling these trees.

A spokesman for Cheshire Police said: “There would have been several trips to move the trees, possibly using a commercial vehicle.

“The Nordmann Fir trees are bought specifically for their non-shedding of needles and members of the public should be aware of being offered this type of tree.”

Neil said that, despite the theft, customers will still be able to buy Christmas trees and other festive items from High Legh Garden Centre this month.

Anyone with information relating to this theft from the garden centre can contact Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111 or the police non-emergency number 101.