Residents, businesses, and community groups now have the power to green their neighbourhoods, thanks to a new council partnership with Trees for Streets.
Leeds City Council has chosen to pilot the National Street Tree Sponsorship scheme in the city this year, with the purpose of unlocking urban greening and getting communities more involved in local tree planting and after-care.
It means that Leeds residents can now request to sponsor and look after a brand new semi-mature street tree at a location with a grass verge of their choosing in Leeds for £150. Neighbours can even choose to set up a crowdfunding page and club together to fund new trees.
Trees for Streets works in partnership with Leeds City Council to get the trees planted. The charity engages with the local community, whilst the council manages the planting of the sponsored trees at the requested locations.
During summer months, residents will take on the job of watering their sponsored trees.
The new scheme is the latest effort towards Leeds’ ambitious target of practically doubling the number of trees across the district by 2050.
Around 150 hectares of woodland has already been planted on public land with the help of volunteers since the launch of the council’s Woodland Creation Scheme. Meanwhile, private landowners (including farmers) in the district are also being helped to access support to plant trees through the council’s partnership with the White Rose Forest initiative.
Increasing tree canopy cover will make Leeds a greener, healthier, and better place to live and is part of the council’s response to the climate emergency.
Tree cover in England is amongst the lowest in Europe. This impacts resilience to the climate crisis, rising temperatures and increasingly severe weather – particularly in towns and cities.
Street trees act as natural air conditioners, providing shade on hot days and cooling the air through a process called evapotranspiration. They also help places cope with heavy rain and protect from flooding. Their roots absorb huge amounts of water, and their leaves and branches collect rainwater as it falls.
Councillor Mohammed Rafique, Executive Member for Climate, Energy, Environment and Green Space, said:
“I am always amazed by the incredible benefits that the right trees, planted in the right places, can have and street trees are some of the most beneficial of all.
“From cooling our streets on hot days, helping to prevent flooding, boosting our wellbeing, creating space for nature, improving beauty in an area—or even their ability to remove planet-warming gases from the air—our ambitious tree planting targets are key to making Leeds a greener, healthier, and better place to live.
“Nobody knows our streets better than the residents who live in them, so I am pleased to launch this exciting initiative with the charity Trees for Streets to empower neighbours and individuals to be able to green their own communities if it is right for them.”
Simeon Linstead, Project Director at Trees for Streets, said:
“Trees breathe life into our streets. They transform them. By working in partnership with Leeds City Council, our aim is to empower locals to make their neighbourhoods greener and healthier.”
Residents can find out how to help plant and protect trees in Leeds at: www.leeds.gov.uk/trees. Alternatively, residents can also go direct to the ‘Sponsor a Street Tree’ scheme page at: www.treesforstreets.org/leeds.
This post is based on a press release issued by Leeds City Council
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Then in 20 yrs those trees planted in verges will be a menace. The council won’t have maintained them, so they’ll want to remove them as they’ll be overgrown.
£150!!!!!! Can get trees from reduced section in garden centres for £10! Personally I’d love them in front of my house hide the ghetto they e built across from me
trees planted on brown lane holbeck, grassed areas forgot about not touched since day one now full of rubbish and overgrown weeds , two trees snapped off a couple of feet above ground by local feral kids etc .
all the so called improvements to pavements and streets and unused cycle paths etc have had no benefit to residents usual council deciding what we need but not living in the area haven’t a clue good at wasting money meanwhile drugs , prostitution , assaults , etc carry on perhaps the problem should be addressed first before the prettying up is put in place.
Henry how true this is, some streets which years ago were always clean and tidy are a disgrace now and why some want to destroy newly planted trees is beyond me -same as the bear sculptures that are placed around the town centre some have been deliberately damaged and have to be removed and repaired, barely ever seen the cycle lanes getting used either, and fly tipping still happens because people don’t care about disposing of their rubbish properly