CONSERVATIONISTS fear that ash dieback disease will spread across the entire country, with outbreaks tripling in the past two years.

Hampshire had been one of the last places free of the disease, but last July the Daily Echo revealed that the first cases had been found at Alice Holt Forest, in the north-east of the county. Since then it has spread westwards, reaching the Alresford area and the Meon Valley.

Figures from the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs show that the number of infected sites has risen from 323 in December 2012 to 949 by December 2014.

Conservationists are worried that it could devastate the ash population in the same way that Dutch elm disease wiped out elm trees in the 1970s.

Known as Chalara fraxinea, the fungus was found after being blown over the English Channel or imported via nurseries. It causes the crown of ash trees to blacken and wither, and can kill younger trees.

The Government is funding research into ash trees that show tolerance to Chalara.

Once infected, the disease blocks off water channels, causing twigs and then branches to wither. Eventually the fungus kills the whole tree.

Dr Richard Buggs, a researcher at Queen Mary College in London, said: “Almost all our ash trees could be affected. Some will die quickly, some will battle the fungus for a decade or more and hopefully a few will be resistant or at least partly resistant.”