Car Park Trees

Back in 1998 we made a decision to landscape our town centre car park with a number of trees to create a softer, more environmentally friendly piece of tarmac. Several plans were submitted and it was decided to ring the perimeter with 14 London Plane trees. These trees were considered ideal for busy town centres and inner City areas due to their ability to remove pollutants from the air on their bark. Once this bark becomes saturated with the pollutants the bark would shed helping the tree rid itself of soot and other pollutants that accumulated over time. Unfortunately, how big these trees can grow was not thought to a be a concern and over time they have grown to above 30ft and could continue to grow well over double this size. As they grew the root system grew with them, and as you probably had witnessed, the roots ran out of soil and started to lift the tarmac making it unsafe for pedestrians and low slung cars alike. Then last year we noticed the roots starting to lift the public path and then the surface of Commercial Rd. With this in mind the decision was made to remove some of the trees. Permission was sought and approved by Weymouth Council and the worst offending trees were removed in January. We are expected to have the car park surface repaired early March and then the white lines repainted shortly after. There is also now a plan to replace our rather old car park entrance barriers with a single span barrier and introduce a new ANPR car park management system.