More trees will be planted thanks to new policy

County Council commits to more tree planting to help combat climate change

The number of trees in Oxfordshire is set to increase thanks to an updated policy at Oxfordshire County Council.   The authority’s Cabinet today endorsed the policy which will put the emphasis on a ‘presumption in favour of trees’ because of the host of benefits they provide to the climate, the environment and the places where people live.

The Council’s existing policy had focussed for most of the last 30 years on maintaining existing trees on a reactive basis.  

Included in the new policy is the requirement to plant two new trees for every tree that has to be removed from county council land.  It also promises to explore new tree planting opportunities and extra investment to carry it out, stricter guidelines for those wanting to remove existing trees and implements proactive care to prolong the lives of established trees.

Bill Cotton, Oxfordshire County Council’s Director of Environment & Place, said: “This is a bold and ambitious long-term policy to increase investment in trees across the county. Trees are valuable assets for so many reasons and we aim to give them more prominence when looking at areas including planning, transport, connectivity and health.

“We want to move away from simply maintaining and managing the trees on our land to actively encouraging and enabling more trees to be planted in both rural and urban settings. This can help tackle climate change and increase resilience to it, as well as improving people’s quality of life – both now and in the future.”

The new policy will not affect the council’s ability to deal with trees which pose a danger to the public or to property.

---

Published: 26/04/2022 03:07pm by Banbury FM Newsteam

---