A TREE maintenance company is celebrating having its council contract renewed.

Connick Tree Care will continue to work with Brighton and Hove City Council having first taken up the role in 1995.

Managing director Mike Connick said: "The feedback from the council is the contract was won based on the high quality of our technical submission and our value for money schedule of rates pricing."

Brighton and Hove is home to Europe’s largest remaining population of elm trees, which is known as the National Elm Collection.

The 19,000 trees are particularly important because elms are increasingly rare due to the blight brought by Dutch Elm disease in the 1970s.