It has never been more important to plant trees for the future. National Tree Week, which runs from November 23 until December 1, is the UK’s largest annual tree celebration, marking the start of the winter tree planting season.
Here in Halton, winter tree planting is just about to start again as part of the Council’s Tree Strategy and its community tree-planting scheme – The Big Halton Forest, which began in 2022 with a target of planting 130,000 new trees across Halton by 2030, is well on the way to realise this ambition.
This year The Big Halton Forest has been supported by successful funding bids to the Forestry Commission’s Local Authority Treescapes Fund (LATF) and other external funding. This includes a new source – the Highway Agency’s Three Million Trees programme that was launched earlier in the year.
Halton Borough Council has revealed that it has secured 15,000 trees for free from the Highways Agency with the first batch of 2,500 trees arriving on Friday 29 November.
The Council has also confirmed that this year’s planting season will see approximately 50,000 new trees planted across the borough, which is a major boost from the previous planting seasons and means the Big Halton Forest target of 130,000 new trees will have passed the halfway mark after only three years of planting.
Cllr Phil Harris, the Council’s lead on the Big Halton Forest, said: ‘’We are on track to deliver what we pledged to do – and using external funding to do it at no cost to local taxpayers.
‘’It’s great to see the progress being made as there are so many benefits that trees offer us all and that includes the wider nature, health and wellbeing benefits.
‘’The recently revised tree strategy for Widnes and Runcorn now has a commitment to increase canopy cover from trees across both towns with targeted action.’’
The tree species that will be planted as part of The Big Forest Project are native species resistant to climate change and will contribute to ensuring Halton’s tree stock remains healthy well into the future.
To find out more about The Big Halton Forest visit: The Big Halton Forest