A month long battle by staff and customers of the Ecology building society to save a magnificent 100 foot high lime tree that has stood for 250 years in Silsden, West Yorkshire and overhangs the society’s own grounds ended on Tuesday after the tree was unceremoniously felled in just five minutes – to make way for an Aldi supermarket.

Contractors with chainsaws moved in yesterday after a tree preservation order was revoked and Bradford council gave the go-ahead to the supermarket giant to destroy the tree, half of whose branches reach into land occupied by the Ecology. The contractors even asked Ecology for access to their grounds to help chop the tree down – which Ecology flatly refused.

“It was completely needlessly chopped down,” says the society’s ethics manager, Anna Laycock, who refused to budge from under the branches when contractors for Aldi arrived earlier this month, and claims the supermarket simply refused to engage with its neighbour over the issue. But the David and Goliath battle – which pitched Ecology, with one office and 23 staff against Aldi, with 10,000 stores and €50bn-plus revenues – ended with victory for Goliath and what Laycock says will be “just another generic Aldi store”.

A Facebook and Twitter campaign to save the tree, which attracted hundreds of messages of support, failed to change Aldi’s plans. “We are working to the sound of chainsaws and chippers. A very sad day in the office,” one Twitter posting said.

“It was horrible to watch it come down,” says Laycock, who said the society tried to engage with Aldi to find a design for the new supermarket that enabled the tree to survive, but were rebuffed. “The noise it made was incredible. The staff here were very, very upset and so were people in the local community. It is a beautiful semi-rural area and we do not believe that removing the tree was the only option.

“Such an important ecological and historical asset should belong to the local community, not to a global supermarket chain. We are equally frustrated with Aldi’s attitude to its neighbours and the local community, the lack of transparency in the process, and their refusal to reply meaningfully to hundreds of messages of protest.”

The Ecology has posted a video of the tree felling on its Facebook page.

Aldi’s corporate responsibility page on its website says the supermarket group is “committed to reducing the environmental impact of our business” including “reducing our carbon footprint” and “meeting leading global standards for green buildings.”

Giles Hurley, joint managing director of corporate buying at Aldi, said, “We understand the concerns of the community regarding the removal of the lime tree in Silsden. This was reviewed and discussed at great length with planning officers, and in line with current environmental standards, we reluctantly had to propose the removal of the tree. The development follows the approved plans which will include a significant replanting scheme within the site.”

Ecology claims that when local residents found out about Aldi’s plans to destroy the tree, many were horrified. “We feel that Aldi has stuck to the letter of the law around planning permissions, but not the spirit. We want Aldi to learn from this experience for future stores. We hope that community consultation and preservation of important natural features will be a higher priority in future.”