COVENTRY MESSAGE BOARD

Work has been done on the Indian bean tree opposite the police station



A beloved city centre tree in Coventry has had one of its limbs cut off. The Indian bean tree opposite Little Park Street Police Station and by former tobacconists Salt's has been a part of town's landscape for decades.

But the squat species, known for its beautifully sprawling branches, has been subject to work after one of the aforementioned limbs grew over a contentiously placed footpath. Coventry City Council submitted a request to undertake maintenance work on the tree earlier this year. This was later granted with standard conditions.

The Coventry Society, a civic group which campaigns and strives to protect and preserve the city, submitted an objection to the planning portal. They urged the council to instead remove a superfluous "short cut" footpath - made decades after the tree had been planted - the offending branch was hanging over.

But the work has since been carried out, with images captured by CoventryLive showing the offending branch sheared away. Part of the Officer Report which was shared as part of the application permission stated the species, known as catalpa, has a maximum life span the tree in question had already reached.

"Catalpa is approximately 60 years of age and belongs to a species which are unfortunately relatively short lived, having an average maximum life of 50 - 70 years," the report stated. "There is little information readily available of when this pocket park was laid out, but from estimates it was an early planting scheme for Little Park Street, laid out between 1955 and 1960.

"This specimen is therefore starting to approach the end of its life, as indicated by its thinning upper crown and brittleness of the limbs, some of which may already have fallen if it was not for the existing cable bracing of branches within the crown, which the Urban Forestry team organised to be installed. The current proposed works will allow the tree to remain safely in place, where it will be kept monitored."