Residents to Decorate Dead Street Trees to Highlight Their Loss

Residents to Decorate Dead Street Trees to Highlight Their Loss

Residents and Nelson ward councillors will gather on Friday 23 June at 4pm to decorate some of the street trees that have died on Connaught Road with ribbons, leaves, flowers and messages to Norfolk County Council in order to highlight the loss of the city’s street trees and the County’s failure to provide adequate resources for planting new highways trees and their maintenance. (1) 

In 2022/23, the County budget allocation for purchasing highways trees for the whole of Norwich was just £20,000 which paid for 49 trees. Norwich is currently losing more street trees than are being replaced. A citizen survey of street trees in Nelson ward last year found 75 dead or missing street trees and further trees have since died from the heatwaves and drought. Nelson councillors persuaded the County Council to find additional funding for nine new street trees in the Spring, but this number is still way below the replacement rate.

Councillor Julie Young, Green Party city councillor for Nelson ward said:

“It is dispiriting for residents and councillors to see so many dead and dying young trees. Nelson ward’s tree canopy cover is 13.6% which is far lower than the minimum 20% standard for inland towns and cities recommended by Forest Research, part of the Forestry Commission.  Norwich has an overall tree canopy coverage of 18.6%, with nine of the city’s thirteen electoral wards below 20%. Green Party councillors want Norwich City Council to set a long-term target for increasing the city’s tree canopy cover to at least 25% and planting more street trees and maintaining them is essential for achieving this goal.” (3)    

Notes:

1. Community Street Tree ‘Dressing’ Event on Friday 23 June – councillors and residents will gather at 4pm on the corner of Connaught Road and Maud Street. We will decorate three young trees which have died in the last few months outside numbers 50, 56 and 66.

2. In 2020, Forest Research conducted a desktop assessment of the tree canopy coverage for each of Norwich’s thirteen wards. Nine wards fall below the FR’s recommended 20% minimum level of provision. Overall, Norwich has 18.6% tree canopy cover. See below for tree canopy coverage figures for the 13 wards.  

Bowthorpe – 20.2%

Catton Grove – 12.0%

Crome – 16.5%

Eaton – 27.9%

Lakenham – 20.6%

Mancroft – 10.7%

Mile Cross – 18.0%

Nelson – 13.5%

Sewell – 11.0%

Thorpe Hamlet – 19.3%

Town Close – 18.4%

University – 20.5%

Wensum – 18.0%

The above data is from UK Ward Canopy Cover Map, by Trees for Cities, Woodland Trust and Forest Research. This is a project set up in 2016 to measure the tree canopy cover of every ward of the UK. The assessment of wards in Norwich was carried out in 2020 The interactive map can be viewed here:

https://forestry.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/index.html?id=d8c253ab17e1412586d9774d1a09fa07

Photo: A dead street tree in Nelson ward (credit: J. Greenaway)