Tree surgery and garden clearance in Coventry

Coventry's gardens come from two very different building booms. A thin belt of Victorian and Edwardian streets survived the war — Earlsdon, Chapelfields, Spon End, parts of Stoke — with narrow frontages and long, thin rear gardens reached through an entry. Around them are the 1930s suburbs built for the car and cycle works, then the post-war rebuilding at Tile Hill, Canley and Bell Green, its landscaping now 60 years old. Add the student belt around the two universities and that is four kinds of job in one city.

CV1 is entirely Coventry City Council, and CV2 to CV6 are overwhelmingly Coventry. CV7 and CV8 are the complicated ones. Balsall Common, Berkswell and Meriden are Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council, and Kenilworth and Burton Green are Warwick District. Ryton, Wolston and Binley Woods are Rugby Borough; Keresley and Ash Green are Nuneaton and Bedworth; Fillongley and Maxstoke are North Warwickshire. A CV postcode tells you almost nothing about whose rules apply.

Branch and Bramble does not carry out the work. We pass your enquiry to one local specialist covering this patch, who confirms a fixed price with you directly.

Tree Preservation Orders and conservation areas

Coventry's conservation areas, named on the council's conservation area maps page, are Allesley Village, Brownshill Green, Chapel Fields, Coventry Canal, Earlsdon, Far Gosford Street, Greyfriars Green, Hawkesbury Junction, High Street, Hill Top, Ivy Farm Lane, Kenilworth Road, Lady Herbert's Garden, London Road, Nauls Mill, Spon End, Spon Street and Stoke Green. The council's pages give different totals in different places, so go by the map. The area at Stoke is Stoke Green, not Stoke Park.

Any tree in one of them with a trunk over 75mm across at 1.5m above the ground is protected: give six weeks' written notice (a section 211 notice) before pruning or felling, the window the council uses to decide whether to make a Tree Preservation Order instead. See trees in conservation areas.

TPOs are on the online planning map, with a caveat worth reading: it leaves out replacement trees planted after an authorised removal, and the council says it is not formal confirmation. Email treesplanning@coventry.gov.uk if the answer decides the job, and see how to check if a tree has a TPO and do I need permission to cut down a tree.

There is a long list of Article 4 Directions too, among them Earlsdon, Brownshill Green and Spon End, one for Lady Herbert's Garden and The Burges made on 8 July 2025, and a city-wide HMO direction dated 30 September 2023. Those control buildings and paving, not trees. Outside the city, Balsall Common, Berkswell and Meriden go to Solihull, which has its own TPO search, and Kenilworth to Warwick District.

Garden waste and tips

Coventry. The brown-lidded garden waste bin is a subscription: £40 a bin, frozen at last year's price, for the year running 1 June 2026 to 31 May 2027, fortnightly with a Christmas pause. Sign up on the council's page or call 08085 834333.

One thing changed this month: Coventry's weekly food waste collection started on 7 September 2026, with a 23-litre lockable caddy delivered to every household. Food waste can no longer go in the brown-lidded bin, which is now garden waste only.

The city has a single tip: the Household Waste Recycling Centre on Bar Road, off London Road, Whitley, CV3 4AN. Access is by booking only, with proof you live in Coventry, and only cars, small vans, 4x4s and cars with trailers are allowed.

Beyond the city:

Warwickshire moved its tips to hybrid booking on 20 July 2026: slots are needed only at some sites on some days, so check first.

The local landscape

Earlsdon and Chapelfields date from the middle of the nineteenth century, Earlsdon as a garden village from 1852, and both are conservation areas. The gardens are long and narrow, often with a workshop range at the back, and the only way in is through the house. That changes the cost of tree work and clearance more than anything else on this page.

Coundon, Radford, Cheylesmore, Wyken and Stoke are the 1930s semi belt: 15 to 25 metre rear gardens with cherry, apple, birch and rowan from the original planting, under a heavy layer of 1970s Leylandii and laurel. Tile Hill, Canley and Bell Green were rebuilt after the war with open frontages and shared green space; where those plots back onto Tile Hill Wood or old railway land, sycamore and ash seed in constantly, and ash dieback shows along the city's wooded edges.

The student belt around Coventry University in Hillfields and Gosford Green, and around Warwick in Canley and Tile Hill, has its own rhythm: landlord-owned gardens seen to once a year, with work bunching into June to September between tenancies. CV7 and CV8 are Arden countryside, with hedgerow oaks that marked field boundaries before the houses arrived.

Tree work in Coventry

Access is the theme in the inner suburbs. In Earlsdon, Chapelfields and Stoke a sycamore at the end of a 40-metre garden comes down in sections and is carried through the house, so the price reflects handling as much as climbing. Removals start from £280; what to photograph for a tree quote is worth reading first.

In the 1930s suburbs it is usually a conifer screen at six metres. Cutting a Leylandii row back is hedge reduction; taking it out is hedge removal at around £70 a metre, minimum £350, and the Leylandii guide explains why reduction stops working once the brown wood shows. In Balsall Common and Kenilworth it is an old hedgerow oak, usually better managed by crown reduction and often protected.

Each enquiry goes to one tree surgeon whose insurance and NPTC certificates we have checked: see do tree surgeons need to be qualified, the Coventry tree surgery page or all tree surgery services.

Garden clearance in Coventry

A £40 brown bin covers ordinary cuttings. It will not shift a Canley garden left through two tenancies. Clearances start from £220 with everything removed, green waste removal from £80. What comes up most:

• Overgrown garden clearance and bramble clearance on post-war plots backing onto woodland and old railway land.
• End-of-tenancy clearances in the student streets, concentrated into the summer; how to clear an overgrown garden helps if you want to do part of it.
• Shed removal from £150, including the workshop ranges behind Earlsdon terraces.
• Hedge trimming at about £10 a metre in Balsall Common and Kenilworth, after checking for nesting birds: see the nesting season guide.

London Road takes no business waste, so a clearance specialist disposes at a licensed facility as a registered waste carrier. Ask to see the registration: fly-tipping and cheap clearance explains why.

See the Coventry garden clearance page or all garden clearance services.