Plant 11 million trees

Last updated: 10:13am 15 January 2019

In addition to the 11 million trees we are planting across our nation, we will ensure that 1 million more are planted in our towns and cities, and place new duties on councils to consult when they wish to cut down street trees.

Conservative Party Manifesto 2017, p.25

Our verdict

This commitment was first announced in the Conservative Party’s 2015 manifesto (page 54). The promise is to plant 11 million trees across England, with support from central government, excluding replacement and restocking . You’ll notice that the government also promised another 1 million trees in towns and cities, but that is a separate policy (see “related policies” below).

There is plenty of evidence of the benefits of trees in urban environments. With that in mind, tree planting is a key part of the government’s 25 Year Plan to improve the environment, launched in January 2018.

So, what progress has been made? The latest report shows that between 1 April and 30 September 2018, 1,161,000 trees were planted in England. If you add that to the 1,579,000 planted in the 2017 /2018 financial year, that means a rough total of 2,740,000 so far. The next update is due in June 2019.

In addition, in June 2018, a “Tree Champion” was appointed by the Environment Secretary to “drive forward planting rates and prevent the unnecessary felling of street trees”.

With the Tree Champion in place and evidence of trees being planted across England we can safely say this is ‘in progress’. Follow this policy for updates!

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