One tree to be planted for every resident in Hertfordshire by 2030
It's one of the aims at the heart of the county council’s new ‘tree and woodland strategy’
More than a million new trees – equivalent to one for every resident in the county – could be planted in Hertfordshire by 2030.
That’s one of aims at the heart of the county council’s new ‘tree and woodland strategy’, that was adopted at a meeting of the cabinet on Monday (March 21).
The strategy has been developed to reflect the council’s ambition to expand trees and woodland on council land and across the county.
It includes the ambition for at least 1.2million trees - as well as 100km of hedgerow trees.
The ambition is to plant at least 100 new trees along highways in each urban ward, where less than 15 per cent of the ward is under cover of a tree canopy.
At the meeting of the cabinet, county council leader Cllr Richard Roberts said that this was a ‘significant investment’ in both woodland and biodiversity more generally.
However not all of the 1.8 million trees (including 600,000 hedgerow trees) would be delivered by the council.
As part of the strategy, the council aims to set-up a grant scheme to enable town and parish councils to create ‘pocket-woodlands’ or orchards.
There are also plans for 100,000 free tree planting kits to be made available for Hertfordshire residents and businesses.
It also points to tree sponsorship and crowd-funding as ways to enable communities to fund new tree planting or woodland protection initiatives.
Executive member for the environment, Cllr Eric Buckmaster said: “Towns and parishes, of course, can play an important role via local grant schemes to create community pocket-woodlands, orchards and other tree scaping initiatives,”
“And we are trialling a programme of community tree watering through local volunteer networks.
“Residents and businesses may be involved through providing free tree planting kits or through establishing tree sponsorship and crowd funding mechanisms to enable communities to fund new tree planting and woodland protection initiatives.”
According to the report presented to the cabinet, wherever possible tree planting will be funded from external grants.
It was reported that, for example, the Countryside Stewardship Grant would pay £11,600 per km of new hedgerow – and the Local Authority Treescape Fund could pay up to £837 per tree.
In 2021 the county council, it was reported, secured £50,156 from the Local Authority Treescape Fund – for the county council and seven district and borough councils.
And it was said ‘larger sums are expected to be available in future years’.
“This is a strategy of great interest to the council, all of our partners and the local community,” said Cllr Buckmaster.
“The report lays out the council’s ambitions for the expansion and management of trees and woodland, both on the county council estates and across Hertfordshire.
“The draught strategy includes tree and woodland targets and an approach on council land and across Hertfordshire, an approach to delivering resilience in Hertfordshire’s tree and woodland and a tree risk management framework.
“All of this works with our ambition of having a measurable improvement of nature across Hertfordshire of 20 per cent by 2050 – and is alongside the England tree strategy aim to increase woodland covering in England to 12 per cent by 2016.”
Cllr Buckmaster said that coverage in Hertfordshire was already around 10.75 per cent, which he said was above the England average.
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