Posted by Ben Gooden on Sun, Jul 05, 2020 @ 11:09 PM
London secures £2m of funding for urban street trees
In exciting news, London has been granted over £2m of funding by the Forestry Commission from the Government’s Urban Tree Challenge Fund to plant over 7000 street trees across the capital. The funding was secured in collaboration with London boroughs, who will plant and maintain the new trees across 20 boroughs.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has matched funding from the Forestry Commission with over £1m from the Mayor’s Greener City Fund. This is alongside £280,000 from the Royal Docks Enterprise Zone, and £1m from participating boroughs. As a result of the funding, 2,898 trees will be planted in London by end of March 2020 and a further 4,040 trees will be planted next winter.
London’s trees are estimated to provide at least £133m of benefits to Londoners every year. They help improve air quality by removing 2,241 tonnes of pollution annually.
Mayor Khan said, “I’m doing everything in my power to make London zero-carbon and one of the greenest, most sustainable cities in the world. London’s trees are the lungs of our city and they can make a real difference improving quality of life in local neighbourhoods. Simple steps like planting trees help us address the climate and ecological crisis. These additional street trees and improvements to green spaces are targeted in areas where they’re most needed. As the world’s first National Park City, we will continue our bold action to preserve and increase tree coverage across London.”