It’s a few years now since a previous B&NES administration decided to try and ‘green up’ the city end of the London Road.
Trees were planted in the central reservation and artist-designed self- rusting and inscribed troughs places on pavements on either side of this traffic-choked and polluted road.
Many of the shrubs in the troughs were removed – because motorists said it blocked their view of traffic coming out of side roads – but where they remain they look beautiful.
However the same cannot be said for the central trees which appear to be dead or dying. I spotted a notice from B&NES in one of the troughs.
It says: ‘The lime trees in the central reservation have sadly been declining since they were planted.
We are carrying out an investigation to find out why they have failed and what might be the best way for them to thrive at this location.
As part of this investigation, one of the trees is being removed so that the pit can be inspected.
Once the work has been completed a replacement lime tree will be planted back in the tree pit with fresh soil.”
B&NES says they need to assess what action to take overall – based on their investigation – but are committed o ensuring healthy trees continue to grow there and help soak up some of that bad air.
Reacting to this story, Bath Newseum follower Haydn Smith says: “It’s simple – the council plants semi-mature trees in too small pits and then fails to water them at all to allow them to get established properly. See dead trees on A36 next to the river as I previously mentioned to you. These have now been removed and no replacements put in.”
The problem is that all the design of this space is a disaster and should never have included such a wide central dead space which pushes the vehicles closer to the pavements exposing people walking/wheeling to heavier particulate pollution.
What’s actually needed is to redesign the Cleveland Bridge junction, Morrisons, and Gloucester Road junctions into CYCLOPS junctions, remove the central island completely and run protected cycle tracks all the way from Walcot Street to the A46 roundabout.
Unfortunately WECA’s Sustainable Transport Settlement funding for BaNES didn’t go far enough and the east of the city lost out. Hopefully future investment will look at getting good bus/cycle infrastructure all the way from Walcot Street to Box.