Trunk calls

Tree-lined city streets are aesthetically pleasing and help to combat the effects of climate change. But have councils got the message?

Manchester's black poplars were once as common a feature of its streetscape as London's plane trees and Brighton's elms. From the late Victorian period until the 1930s, they were planted in their thousands for their tolerance to the city's smog-filled air. No one would plant the species as an urban roadside tree today, says Joe Walsh, arboricultural officer for Manchester Leisure, because of its tendency to shed branches. In recent times, most were removed from streets by the council for safety reasons, but they lived on in Manchester parks, churchyards and woods, and were objects of local pride - not least because black poplars are a national rarity, with only 7,000 across the UK.

But in the summer of 2000, Walsh noticed young shoots and leaves were blackening and dying. Within a couple of years, this "poplar scab" had spread, and a full-scale cull was carried out. He says only 300 specimens remain in the remoter city parks or wooded areas. The loss of large numbers of familiar landscape trees can cause a kind of collective psychological disorientation. Equally, it can provide the unexpected dividend of jolting recognition of the value of trees. This seems to have been the case in Manchester. The council's commitment to a planting agenda is cause for Margaret Lipscomb, director of urban programmes for the Tree Council, to cite it as an exemplar city for "its understanding of the benefits of trees, and the need to engage with people on why they are important".

City-wide audit

Manchester's ambition to become Britain's "greenest city" includes a 10-point Green Agenda, with a commitment to increase tree cover by 10% in all new developments, and to plant at least 5,000 trees across the city annually. So far, 10,000 have been planted in the past three years. It's also nearing the completion of a city-wide tree audit, which Dave Barlow, environment engagement manager, says is a first. "No city in Britain has ever had that level of information about its leaf cover before," he says. "It will enable us to identify accurately which are the poorest and richest wards for trees."

The case for trees as enhancers of urban aesthetics has been made increasingly vociferously in recent years. A study published last year by the University of Manchester, which set out - in plain science - their value in helping cities adjust to the effects of climate change, ratcheted up the pressure on decision-makers. "For years we've been running urban forestry conferences presenting the case for trees in cities," says Glenn Gorner, former president of the Royal Forestry Society, "and it's been like rolling a very heavy weight up a hill. But now this document has arrived on desks, stating a 10% rise in tree cover could cool urban temperatures by 4C for relatively little cost, it has the potential to make people sit up and take notice."

For all that, practical progress on the ground could be teeth-grindingly slow. Two months ago, a report commissioned by the Department of Communities and Local Government raised serious questions about the readiness of local councils to carry the agenda forward. It found, for instance, that only 28% had produced specific tree strategies. "Even that figure gave an over optimistic assessment," explains Dr Mark Johnston, lecturer and research fellow at Myerscough College, and one of the report's main authors.

"The more you questioned councils on their strategy documents, the less convincing many became. Some were little more than mission statements, with no targets in them whatsoever." Among other findings were that many tree officers lacked the qualifications necessary to perform their duties properly, and that the budgetary financial commitment of some authorities to trees amounted to no more than 8p per head of their respective populations.

In London, the problem seems particularly acute. Last year, the London assembly criticised several boroughs for failing to plant enough trees or make adequate provision for those in their care. The absence of strategic planning was flagged up as an issue requiring urgent attention.

Jim Smith heads the London Trees and Woodland Framework (LTWF), set up in 2005 by the Greater London authority and the Forestry Commission to provide an overview of London's trees and woods. He says he is devising a London tree survey, using the input of the commission and the London Tree Officers Association, though he does not say when this will be completed. He points out London boroughs are planning more trees than at any time in the past. Figures in the assembly report show that while boroughs like Croydon and Harrow have removed more trees in the last five years, over two-thirds of boroughs planted more than they have removed.

"The issues we face are more down to the types of tree we are planting, and the pressure being placed on tree officers due to increased litigation and subsidence claims," Smith says. Greater London's location on shrinkable Thames Valley clays has long been the causes of fears of tree-related subsidence in buildings. This has induced a policy of planting smaller trees, less likely to be cited in subsidence claims, but which confer few of the environmental benefits cited in the Manchester study.

Smith is impressing on authorities and the public the need to plant more large landscape trees rather than small cherry trees. "The extensive nature of public utilities on modern streets - gas, water, electric, cable and telecommunications cables - means that ... we have a very congested environment in which to plant new trees, which is not to say it cannot be done. The other big challenge is to ensure the foundations in new developments are constructed so as to accommodate the presence of largescale trees."

Boris Johnson's successful mayoral campaign was deemed to owe much to his appeal to the voters in the leafy outer suburbs. But his commitment to plant 10,000 trees will be pointless if not targeted at needy inner-city areas. "That is exactly what we have been saying to him," says Graham Simmonds, chief executive of Trees for Cities, an independent charity. "It's not about greening up areas that already have lots of trees, but planting in areas ... that desperately need more."

Funding targets

Trees for Cities has entered into a partnership with Tower Hamlets, the borough with one of the feeblest tree-planting records, for planting projects over the next five years. It has also developed a planting partnership with Leeds city council, where it has planted 9,000 trees in the last two years. Yet a charity with an annual turnover of £1.8m can only do so much. Ultimately, responsibility for the future of urban trees and forestry rests with local authorities. Trees in Towns II has set targets for them over the next five years, including the development of comprehensive tree strategies, a commitment to have at least one trained tree officer in position, and for tree sections to set external funding targets, rather than depending on money voted through on tight council budgets.

But windy pronouncements and mission statements will ring hollow if resources are not channelled into long-term tree planning. Trees in Towns II, and the reports by the London assembly and Manchester University have laid out the facts, the policy deficiencies, and the options for the future. "The ball is firmly in the local authorities' court," says Johnston. "How much do they really care about trees?"