4000 news trees for London

Twenty boroughs are set to benefit from up to 4000 new street trees, thanks to funding from the Mayor of London.

During his election the Mayor pledged efficiency savings would be ploughed into 10,000 street trees to improve Londoners’ quality of life. This is the second round of planting, building on the award of cash for the 1500 trees planted in ten boroughs earlier this year. Londoners say that improvements to their local environment help to make their communities better places to live, and these trees are being planted by boroughs, community groups or charities who applied for funds from the Mayor’s tree programme.

The Mayor, Boris Johnson, said: ‘Trees are wonderful additions to our communities helping to make neighbourhoods more pleasant. I am thrilled with the success of this programme in planting these trees in the areas that will benefit most.’

The second batch of trees will be planted between November and spring next year, with financial grants offered to organisations to plant trees in 20 boroughs (these figures are estimates subject to further planning work such as consultations with local people and council permissions ): Brent (70), Bexley (196), Barnet (114), Barking and Dagenham (379), Bromley (208), Enfield (257), Ealing (202), Harrow (400), Hillingdon (88), Hammersmith and Fulham (192), Hounslow (310), Haringey (150), Merton (207), Lewisham (355), Lambeth (237), Tower Hamlets (170), Redbridge (100), Sutton (183), Richmond (40) and Waltham Forest (100). The boroughs and organisations which have been awarded the funding will now be speaking to members of the public who registered interest online about having a tree in their street to assess the suitability of these locations.

Winning bids for this round include:

· Hillingdon Council who is working with Blue Sky Development and Regeneration, a not for profit company that gives young people newly released from prison the opportunity to help the local borough plant trees.

· Hammersmith and Fulham borough have been working closely with the Brackenbury Residents Association who will help to water and maintain the trees once they have been planted.

London is a very green city compared to other world cities, two-thirds of the capital’s land area is green spaces and water and the Mayor’s street tree and parks programmes are helping to make London greener still, which benefits both Londoners’ quality of life as well as helping tackle issues such as climate change. About 1.75 million Londoners live in areas that are further than 1km from an area of space of containing nature and/or wildlife – this has been factor in choosing which are the areas are being given priority for street trees. Street trees offer a range of benefits including attracting wildlife, providing shade, helping improve local air quality and reducing flood risk.

The Mayor’s street tree programme is managed by the Forestry Commission and is an expansion of their existing London Tree and Woodland Grant Scheme. The Forestry Commission is working in partnership with the environmental charity Groundwork London to manage the scheme. Detailed guidance on how to bid for funding for street trees is available from www.ltwgs.org The third phase of funding will start in April 2010.

The Mayor’s trees programme is being funded by efficiency measures which includes significant cost savings by the scrapping of the Londoner, a newspaper distributed to three million homes across Greater London by the previous administration.

The Mayor wants the new trees to be planted in 40 residential areas where few street trees exist and which would most benefit from them. It is expected that successful locations within these areas will benefit from around 100-400 new street trees over the Mayor’s four-year term.

The eligible areas were selected by a panel of tree experts including: Trees for Cities, the London Tree Officers Association, the Forestry Commission, Greenspace

Information for Greater London, the Greater London Authority, the London Development Agency, Transport for London, London Councils, the Tree Council and Natural England.

The final locations of street tree planting will be subject to local consultation and assessment of suitability.

The London regional office of Forestry Commission works in partnership with a range of national, regional and local bodies to promote and secure the benefits which trees and woodlands offer to London. These benefits include a place for recreation, a place to observe wildlife, a source of woodland products and a contribution to the landscape whether this is in local woodlands or in parks and residential streets.

As a charity, Groundwork London works alongside local communities, public bodies, private companies and other voluntary sector organisations to support communities in need. They have more than twenty-five years’ experience of delivering bespoke projects that use the environment as a catalyst for building a more sustainable future. Last year alone Groundwork London delivered almost 700 projects across the capital, helping improve the quality of people’s lives, their prospects and potential and the places where they live, work and play.

Areas which do not lie within a priority area may be eligible for a grant from the Forestry Commission who provide grants to support tree planting in other streets, open spaces, schools and woodland through their Community Grant. More information can be found at www.ltwgs.org