Growing the future: Woodland Trust General Election manifesto priorities

• Towns and cities with lots of trees are happier, healthier and more resilient places to live. Trees bring beauty, wildlife and a range of essential benefits including cleaner air and shade that can lower summer temperatures by 12 degrees.
• But access to trees is hugely unequal. Canopy cover ranges from 45% in Farnham, Surrey, to 3% in Fleetwood, Lancashire. At district level, Surrey Heath boasts canopy cover of 36% while South Holland in Lincolnshire has only 2.2%.
• While the use of local green space has grown steadily over the last decade, the percentage of people who live near woods where they are free to walk is decreasing. 
• Projects like the Northern Forest are pointing the way to a better future with 300,000 households – equivalent to the size of Leeds – now benefiting from access to woodland that didn’t exist previously. 
• The Woodland Trust’s tree equity project, in conjunction with American Forests and the Centre for Sustainable Healthcare, is a new way to measure the ecosystem services of urban trees and woods and people’s ability to access them across thousands of neighbourhoods. This approach should be used to understand and protect trees as a vital resource, and to target investment so that everyone can enjoy the multiple benefits of trees regardless of background.

We need:

• a new long-term target to reduce inequalities in urban tree cover and improve tree equity, by increasing native tree canopy cover in England to 16%. This should include a minimum canopy cover requirement of 30% for new development. 
• a £100 million Woods for People Fund to buy land and create woodland that’s accessible, publicly owned and wildlife-rich where this is currently lacking.
• targeted funding to help local authorities produce and update their tree strategies and ensure they have the staff and skills to plant and manage trees. 
• investment in commercial, local authority and community tree nurseries to rapidly expand the supply of UK and Ireland sourced and grown trees. This will support objectives for conservation and the urban environment, mitigate the risk of introducing pests and diseases, and create viable green jobs.
• building nature and climate into new developments from the outset by increasing canopy cover to support climate resilience and access to nature close to where people live.

• With less than half the woodland cover of countries such as France and Germany, we urgently need more trees in our landscapes. Government investment over the last five years has begun to reap rewards, with more landowners choosing to plant trees for climate and nature, but this positive trend is now in jeopardy with great uncertainty around future funding support. 
• With no ring-fenced support for trees and woods going forward, boom-and-bust is a real risk. Hard-won momentum in tree planting could be lost while vital issues such as the care and management of existing trees continue to be marginalised and underfunded. 

We need long term funding commitments to help land managers secure the benefits of woods and trees for climate, nature and people. This should include:  

• a five year, £1bn nature recovery funding package to support woodland resilience, restoration, management, access and skills. A ring-fenced fund of £325m a year should support woodland creation, from small projects to landscape scale schemes like the Northern Forest, which is planting 50 million trees in and around Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull.
• spatial targeting of Environmental Land Management payments to help land managers improve the condition of our woods and trees and support the recovery of woodland wildlife, as directed by Local Nature Recovery Strategies.
• private finance support being properly regulated and well directed to maximise outcomes for nature and people without dialling down protection. 

• Forestry Commission sites in England consist of over 200,000 hectares of land – three times the combined size of Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Newcastle. 
• Split across 1,500 sites and managed by Forestry England, the Public Forest Estate has enormous potential to offer public access, support nature, and help the country mitigate and adapt to climate change as well as providing an important source of timber. 
• But despite some good practice, the legal purpose of the nation’s forests and the work of Forestry Commission England are still closely tied to legislation written more than 100 years ago – long before today’s pressing threats to nature and climate.

We need:

• a new Forestry Act for the 21st century. This will place a duty on Government’s forestry bodies to significantly enhance the public goods and benefits trees can provide to society, including recovering nature, tackling climate change and providing access for all, alongside the historic existing duty to promote timber. 
• a ringfenced budget for Forestry England to restore the almost 100,000 hectares of rare wildlife habitats, such as ancient woodland, that are currently damaged by plantation forestry.  
• new legislation and funding to protect the nation’s forests and their irreplaceable value for current and future generations.

• This country is blessed with an extraordinary array of ancient and veteran trees. Utterly irreplaceable, our living legends define the forests, landscapes, parks and streets they sit within. This places us in a unique position to demonstrate global leadership.
• Ancient woodland covers less than 3% of the UK. It’s an irreplaceable habitat of huge value to native wildlife and as a carbon store. Yet many ancient and veteran trees and ancient woodlands are under threat from factors including development pressure, plantation forestry, changing climate, disease and poor management. Combined, these threats pose an existential risk.
• Measures are urgently needed to protect our living legends for generations to come.

We need:

• a new law to legally protect our oldest and most important trees and prevent further loss of the remaining fragments of ancient woodland (pre-1600) by strengthening planning policy. 
• a new category of ‘long-established woodland’ to protect other important woods (those in situ since 1840) through the planning system.
• to update the Tree Preservation Order system so it gives meaningful and consistent protection, especially to trees in urban environments.
• a £250 million Ancient Woodland Restoration Fund to kick-start the restoration of ancient woodlands being damaged by timber plantations.
• a strategic approach to spatial planning which focuses on enhancing the environment, not  simply speed of development.
• better protection from development for important habitats, including ancient woodland. 

• England needs a new Trees Action Plan. While politicians from all parties talk about the critical importance of trees and woods for people, nature and climate, after the next election England will have no plan setting out the funding and actions needed to bring these benefits about.

We need the next government to urgently produce a new Trees Action Plan for England. It should set out plans to:

• create new woods in places where they will benefit the health and wellbeing of people and nature the most.
• improve protection of trees and woods from development, disease and land use change, and help in adapting to our changing climate.
• restore our native trees and woods to good ecological condition.
• grow more trees domestically and end the reliance on imports.
• invest more in the skills needed to look after trees and woods and help ensure they stay healthy long into the future.