Tree Strategy for Council-Owned Trees

We ‘own’ and hold responsibility for thousands of trees.  These are your familiar trees, which line many streets, beautify parks and compliment other green spaces. 

The benefits that these trees provide extend far beyond simply ‘looking nice’.  They promote value and economic development, climate change adaptation and people’s health and wellbeing.  We recognise that trees are highly important – that they are valuable assets. 

On the other hand, there are some council trees with the potential to be implicated in inconvenience, damage or potential harm.  This can range from relatively insignificant issues such as branches blocking satellite TV reception, through to damage to buildings caused by drying clay soils caused the action of tree roots.  A worst-case scenario might be the harmful consequences if a tree breaks or falls in a busy place.  We recognise that we have got legal duties and responsibilities.

We want to make the most of this balance between tree benefits and tree problems so we are developing a Tree Management Strategy for Council-Owned Trees.Your views, your opinions and your local knowledge are vital to the process.  We want to know what you think about trees. 

This is the first part of an emerging project to prepare an overarching Tree Strategy aiming to manage all tree canopy cover in the Borough.