On behalf of Sheffield City Council, Council Leader Tom Hunt has responded to concerns the Council has regarding potential damage to Sheffield's street trees, during the installation of telegraph poles and overhead wires where improvements to fibre broadband are being made.
Sheffield joins National Street Tree Sponsorship initiative
A new charity led scheme is launching in Sheffield today to help residents engage directly in street tree planting.
Sheffield’s ‘Street Tree Partnership Strategy’, set out an aim of supporting ‘residents and community groups fund additional street tree planting’. A two year trial of this process has been a great success, with many streets benefitting from 114 trees planted through community fundraising.
To develop this activity further, Sheffield City Council, in consultation with the Sheffield Street Tree Partnership, has committed to working with Trees for Streets, the National Street Tree Sponsorship Scheme.
Trees for Streets aims to support towns and cities across the UK plant more street trees by making it easier for residents, community groups and local businesses to donate towards the cost of planting and maintenance.
The charity offers an intuitive web experience where you can select a planting location on a map (maybe somewhere in your street), run an indicative location survey, and manage your sponsorship request.
The Trees for Streets team also work directly with local residents, community groups and businesses to help raise awareness of the benefits of street trees and support local efforts to raise funds.
The initiative aims to widen the involvement of communities in street tree planting, benefiting the entire city.
To do so, it offers both sponsorship of individual trees, but also crowdfunding where residents can club together to fund several trees.
As well as working with local businesses and other organisations to raise funding for areas characterised by higher deprivation and lower tree cover, the scheme offers sponsorship of trees in both streets and local parks.
The aim of the scheme is two-fold – to connect communities with tree planting, the environment and their immediate neighbourhood, and to help create a step-change in the level of street tree planting over the next decade.
With the adverse effects of climate change, pollution, a degraded environment and increasingly dense urban living, we need trees now more than ever.
Street trees do so much for us:
- Improve air quality by acting like natural filters
- Capture carbon dioxide and produce oxygen
- Absorb air pollution
- Improve our health and wellbeing – both physically and mentally
- Provide a home for wildlife
- Protect us from flooding
- Create shading and cooling – so important in towns and cities
- Make the neighbourhoods where we live that bit nicer
Nathan Edwards, Chair of the Sheffield Street Tree Partnership said:
“In recent years, the work of the Sheffield Street Tree Partnership has meant that our street trees are well managed and heading in a positive direction.
“This new partnership with Trees for Streets helps us broaden our community involvement in tree planting, making it more accessible and inviting the wider community to play an active role in nurturing our cherished street trees.”
Richard Eyre, Director of Street Scene and Regulation at Sheffield City Council said:
‘For the last two years, Sheffield has achieved Tree City of the World status; an international accolade to recognise cities and towns committed to ensuring that their urban forests and trees are celebrated, sustainably managed, and properly maintained.
“Sheffield’s trees and woodlands provide significant benefits for the people of our city, making urban areas and local neighbourhoods attractive and healthy places to live and work.
“This new partnership will enhance our approach to street tree planting, both in terms of funding and engagement.”
How it works:
- Go to the Trees for Streets website
Visit Sheffield’s tree sponsorship page at: https://sponsor.treesforstreets.org/provider/sheffield-city-council
- Choose the location for your sponsored tree on the map
- Answer a few questions about the location and give your details
- Sheffield City Council plants your tree
We'll let you know within a few weeks if your sponsorship is approved, then the council will plant the tree the following autumn/winter.
Find out more and get involved:
https://sponsor.treesforstreets.org/provider/sheffield-city-council
