CCTV footage has revealed the moment a giant tree crashed into a Norton street during Storm Doris – just 30 seconds after a car went past!

The “enormous” Scots pine plunged into Greyhound Lane at around noon last Thursday (February 23) blocking the road entirely.

Mum-of-two Claire Haywood-Dunn, aged 41, told how the News last week how “luckily it fell across the road” at a time when no vehicles or pedestrians were passing.

Amazingly, when she checked her CCTV video footage she was shocked to see a motorist had been driving along that stretch of road – just 30 seconds before the massive evergreen tree came crashing down into the street.

A silver hatchback, thought to be a Volkswagon Golf, was seen passing the tree at 12:01:24. By 12.01:54 it had been uprooted by Storm Doris and by 12:01:55 it had crashed to the ground completely.

Mrs Haywood-Dunn said: “It just hit the road like a piece of concrete. We’re so lucky no one was hurt. It could have been so much more of a disaster.”

The 41-year-old, whose two young children were in the house at the time, however, has been left worrying whether she would have been liable for an accident involving the tree after being told to expect a bill from Dudley Council for the clearing of the highway after the 35-metre evergreen succumbed to Storm Doris.

Councillor Hilary Bills, Dudley's cabinet member for environmental services, said the authority would “look to recoup the clearance costs from the tree owner” even though Mrs Haywood-Dunn and her husband Andy had been denied the opportunity to chop it down.

The couple were refused permission to fell the tree, which had a tree preservation order on it, because it was considered by Dudley planners to “provide a high amount of amenity to the surrounding area”.

A subsequent appeal to the Planning Inspectorate to overturn the decision also proved unsuccessful just 13 months ago.