London Mayor Boris Johnson promises new trees on London streets (From Your Local Guardian)

London Mayor Boris Johnson promises new trees on London streets

7:40am Saturday 16th May 2009 in

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The Mayor of London is using money from the scrapped Londoner Newspaper to plant thousands of trees across London, including in parts of Croydon.

During his election campaign, Mayor Boris Johnson promised to fund 10,000 street trees in areas where they will most help to improve people’s quality of life. The first 1,500 trees are already being planted in 20 locations across the capital.

To further his pledge to make London a more pleasant place to live, Johnson has extended the scheme to include an additional 40 areas across 32 boroughs.

It is expected that 100 to 400 trees will be planted in chosen locations across every priority area, so by registering online, residents in Croydon will increase the chances of their streets getting some welcome greenery.

The second application round will open in June which will result in trees being planted from November to March 2010.

Organisations applying for grants will be encouraged to involve the local people in planting, tending and looking after the street trees.

More information on how to bid for funding – which is a different process to registering an interest in having a tree – is available from ltwgs.org.

The Mayor also wants to encourage the 500,000 people living in priority areas who want trees outside their house to register their interest online at london.gov.uk/streettrees.

• Does your area have too few trees? Tell us in the comments section below.

Comments(5)

Hephaistos says...
11:51am Sat 16 May 09

It would not be so bad if the tree lovers made sure that street trees were maintained after they have been planted.
A look around those places, like Sunbury, which have been cursed with inappropriately located , or preserved, street trees would see that they are not maintained by cash strapped councils.
The only trimming done is by large vehicles.
The roots lift pavements. When they are eventually cut down the base stump and roots are left for years and years to rot away. Many buildings, offices and houses, are blighted by their presence blocking out the natural daylight.
There is a right and a wrong place for everything and city and urban streets are not the place for trees.
The Mayor could have used the money saved by srapping The Londoner to reuce council tax. As per usual, as a politician, he just could not resist the temptation to waste other peoples money in planting the trees and subjecting the electorate to a high maintenance bill for years to come. I bet he did not even consider the long term cost of his decision before he jumped in with both feet.