Over half a million trees set to be planted across UK

Hundreds of thousands of trees are set to be planted in communities across England as applications for the Local Authority Treescapes Fund and the Urban Tree Challenge Fund reopen.

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs has said that over £9 million will be allocated to successful applicants across both funds, which will support tree planting efforts and improve the environment for future generations as we build back greener from the pandemic.

Both funds form part of the government’s wider drive to treble tree planting rates across England by the end of this Parliament and plant 30,000 hectares of trees across the UK per year by 2025.

Now in its second round, successful applicants to the Local Authority Treescapes Fund will be allocated a share of £5.4 million for the planting of up to 650,000 trees in 2022/23.

If successful, applicants to the fourth round of the Urban Tree Challenge Fund will be awarded a share of more than £3.8 million – enough to fund the planting of over 28,000 large trees in both urban areas, and where rural and urban areas meet. This funding aims to grow the number of trees in and around deprived urban areas to bring people from all socio-economic backgrounds closer to nature.

Forestry Minister Lord Goldsmith said: “Everyone across the country deserves to benefit from the cleaner air and natural beauty that trees offer. This funding will support inspiring projects in England to level up people’s access to nature, support our wider ambitions to treble tree planting rates by the end of this Parliament and achieve net zero by 2050.”

Applications for both funds are now open until 31 May 2022.