HIGH winds left a trail of destruction yesterday as storms battered the Sussex coast.

A car and a lamp post were among the casualties, destroyed by falling trees in the early hours.

A yellow weather warning issued by the Met Office remained in place for all of England and Wales until 10pm last night as strong winds continued to lash the county.

In Brighton, a section of Dyke Road was closed throughout the morning as workmen from the council’s City Parks team chopped a large fallen tree into pieces.

In Wilmington Way, Patcham, a car was written off after being crushed by a tree.

Peter Elliott, 53, had driven from Wales to visit his parents who live in Wilmington Way in the car which he bought only a week ago.

When he looked out of the window yesterday morning, a huge horse chestnut tree had been blown over in the night and landed across the roof of his Ford Focus.

He said: “I heard an almighty crash at about 5.20am but I didn’t know what had happened until the neighbour came round later.

“He said he looked out and saw it come down, he said it was like slow motion going down on to the car.

“It must have been a terrific gust of wind.

“I’ve only had it a week so it’s not like I was attached to it – if it was my motorbike it would have been different.”

Mr Elliott said council parks staff had attended straight away and had been “brilliant”, quickly chainsawing the fallen tree into pieces and taking it away.

He said he has been advised to claim against the city council’s insurance rather than his own, although the paperwork will have to wait as the logbook and insurance policy are in the glovebox of his car and he can’t get at them.

Elsewhere in the city the storms caused major damage when a huge tree was blown across Dyke Road from the grounds of sheltered accommodation block Homelees House.

It flattened a wall and gate and bent a lamp post to the ground.

Chris Banks, a maintenance worker for power firm Colas who was called out to disconnect the power from the lamp post so tree surgeons could safely operate around it, said the level of damage was extraordinary.

Referring to the streetlight, he said: “It takes a lot to knock over a 10 metre column like that.

“It would have probably killed someone if they were underneath it.”

Kirsten Combe, who works as a room leader at Officreche children’s nursery across the road, said: “I heard it.

“It sounded like a huge crash, just ‘bang’.”

Seven tree surgeons from City Parks attended the scene to cut the tree up and remove it, watched by a crowd of onlookers.

Meanwhile police blocked access to the site from three directions.

David Weedall, 60, who has lived in the adjacent Alexandra Villas for 30 years, said the damage was reminiscent of the greatest storm of the last century,

He said: “Last time I remember seeing a tree come down like this was in the hurricane of 1987.

“That was devastating, but this is pretty bad, if anyone had been underneath it they wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

Elsewhere in Sussex, a road in Eastbourne was closed due to a fallen tree.

The Goffs was shut for several hours, with cars and buses redirected round Moatcroft Road.

Emma Sharples, a meteorologist with the Met Office, told The Argus that the highest recorded gusts of wind on Monday night in central Sussex were at Shoreham Airport, where instruments picked up gusts as fast as 36 knots – about 41mph.

She said a yellow weather warning had been issued from 10am to 10pm on Tuesday, covering most of England and Wales, for high winds and heavy rain.

She said: “Yellow is the lowest level of warning in terms of impact but we were forecasting strong to gale-force winds, with gusts of 40 to 50mph, even 60mph in some isolated places.”

She said forecasters were also expecting localised transport disruption from overturned trees and high waves in coastal regions.

The forecast for the rest of the week is changeable but the worst of the storms are believed to be over.

Next week will be slightly warmer than the June average with highs in the 20s.