A memorial to the 2,241 victims of the Birmingham Blitz has had to be removed - because planners say it is 3ft too tall.

The Tree of Life was unveiled last weekend in ceremony in the Bull Ring attended by families of those who died.

But the 12ft monument was immediately removed because Birmingham City Council said it had only approved planning permission for a 9ft statue.

Campaigners claim they had alerted planners to the slight increase in height of the £150,000 statue almost a month before the unveiling. Coun Albert Bore, leader of the Labour group on Birmingham City Council, described the move as "bureaucracy gone mad".

The city council approved planning permission for the sculpture on September 28.

Originally the memorial was to be 9ft high. But the Birmingham Air Raids Remembrance Association (BARRA) wanted it to stand on a higher plinth so the names of the Blitz victims would be at eye-level.

They informed the council about the height change a month before the official ceremony last Saturday.

One week before the big day, the city's planning department phoned BARRA chairman Brian Wright to say "they had lost confidence they could install the memorial in time".

Mr Wright was given the agonising decision of postponing the ceremony after months of preparation, or having the memorial placed on a temporary base and taken down immediately afterwards.

Days later, he said he discovered the real reason the council had not dug the necessary foundations.

"There was no way we could cancel because people were coming from all over the country and St Martin's Church had been booked for ages," he said, "so we decided to have it there on a temporary base."

Sir Albert, said: "I'm flabbergasted. This is bureaucracy gone mad. I can't understand why planning permission couldn't have been sorted out while the memorial was in situ. It seems stupid to take it away because of this small increase in height.

"I was very pleased to be at the ceremony."