Best Practice for tree planting events with social distancing

The Tree Council along with the LTOA, Arboricultural Association, Woodland Trust, TCV and the Orchard Project have produced guidance for carrying out tree planting with social distancing.

Please click here for the best practice guidance

Grow Back Greener Fund open for applications

COVID-19 has demonstrated just how important our city's amazing green spaces are for Londoners' quality of life. The Mayor wants to ensure that all Londoners can access open spaces and live in green neighbourhoods. The new Grow Back Greener grants will fund projects across the capital that will make our city greener and give Londoners the chance to get involved.

Grants of between £5,000 and £50,000 are available for projects across London that will improve and create green spaces, green the built environment, and help us adapt to climate change. This could include improving parks, creating community gardens, cleaning up nature reserves and waterways, installing sustainable drainage, planting trees or greening streets. The fund will prioritise projects located in areas of the city with poor access to open space and nature.

Projects must be completed between November 2020 and June 2021, and applications are open to civil society organisations and local authorities.Applications must be submitted by 5pm on Monday 5 October.

Find out more and apply now at www.london.gov.uk/greenerfund  

Why local authorities remove trees a part of good urban tree management

This position statement sets out some of the reasons why London boroughs remove trees and whilst new trees are usually planted, there are good arboricultural reasons not to replace trees in some instances.

Counting numbers of trees which have been removed or planted is short sighted and canopy cover provides a more reasonable measure of our tree population. Professional local authority tree officers and adequate resourcing are key to the success of the urban forest.

Click here to read the full statement (Adobe Acrobat PDF)

Election of LTOA Executive Committee

The London Tree Officers Association (LTOA) has announced the election of a new Executive Committee to head up the association for the next two years. The Executive Committee was elected by the members of the LTOA and will continue to promote urban forestry and represent tree officers in London and beyond. For full details of the LTOA and short biographies of the Executive Committee please visit http://www.ltoa.org.uk/about-the-ltoa/the-executive-committee.

The new Chair of the Executive Committee is Andy Tipping (Barnet) and the Vice Chair is Colleen O’Sullivan (Camden). The other members of the Committee are Dale Mortimer (Ealing), Craig Ruddick (Richmond), Dave Lofthouse (Merton), Barbara Milne (Westminster), Jon Ryan, (Islington), Oliver Stutter (Southwark), Richard Edwards (Croydon) with new members Ian Leonard (Lambeth), Jessica Stocks (Kensington and Chelsea) and Grayham Tindal (Transport for London).

Andy Tipping, the new LTOA chair said ‘‘I am delighted to be voted in as Chair of LTOA for a second time and I, along with the rest of the LTOA Executive Committee, want to extend our greatest thanks to Barbara Milne for her time as Chair.

My main ambition for the next two years is to foster greater relations with all stakeholders in the UK, we are keen to collaborate with other arboricultural organisations and there has already been some great work with the new Association of Tree Officers, connecting with Tree Officers all over the British Isles and abroad".