Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what plans he has to continue (a) maintenance and (b) funding for trees planted under the Urban Tree Challenge Fund.

The Government recognises the value of our urban trees and is committed to planting and protecting them. This is reflected in the significant increase in investment on trees announced in the budget. Urban trees play a crucial role in providing health and wellbeing benefits for communities, flood risk alleviation and carbon sequestration.

The Urban Tree Challenge Fund (UTCF) was launched in May 2019 and aims to plant 130,000 trees across England’s towns and cities by 2021. The first round of the UTCF closed in August 2019 and is funding the planting of over 22,000 large trees and 28,000 small trees in urban areas. The second round of the UTCF opened in March, for successful applicants to plant this winter. As well as providing funding for the planting of large and small trees in urban and peri-urban areas, the UTCF provides three years of establishment payments following planting.

We will shortly be consulting the public on an English Tree Strategy. This will set out the Government’s vision for the sector for the years to come and will be a crucial mechanism for delivering the planting of trees in both rural and urban areas.