The disease threatening to wipe out the majority of Britain's ash trees may have spread further - as a Government's emergency committee convened to discuss the crisis.
The fungal disease, known as ash dieback, has killed up to 90% of ash trees in some areas of Denmark and has now been found in Britain - with one expert warning it could wipe out 19 out of every 20 ash trees.
The Government banned imports of ash trees on Monday after a programme that has seen 100,000 specimens destroyed since the disease was discovered in March.
But the discovery of the disease in mature trees in East Anglia has raised fears it has blown in to the UK as well as arriving on imports and will be hard to control. On Friday morning, it emerged that another potentially infected site had been found in Kent.
Professor Ian Boyd, the Department for Environment (Defra)'s chief scientific adviser, said he expected more trees to become infected in coastal areas.
At a media briefing in central London, Prof Boyd said: "There is some suggestion that there may be some sites in Kent that might be infected. We have known that there's a possibility of infection but we have to confirm that, it's not confirmed at the moment.
"I think the general message is that we now are seeing a pattern which is suggesting there's been transmission by wind across from the Continent so we probably should expect some forms of infection to emerge along coastal regions."
The news came after Environment Secretary Owen Paterson convened a Cobra crisis committee to examine the latest developments and co-ordinate action to halt the spread of the fungal disease, which causes leaf loss and crown dieback.
After the meeting, he said a mass survey of trees in almost 3,000 test areas should produce a clear picture of the extent of the threat by the middle of next week. Mr Paterson said: "We have had an assessment of the state of the disease. We also had an assessment of the current survey, where we are looking at 2,900 10km squares right across the United Kingdom.
"We also had a presentation on possible solutions - at the moment we do not have a cure for the disease - and also measures we might take having established the survey, which should be completed by the middle of next week."
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