Launched in December 2010, The Big Tree Plant was a Government-sponsored campaign in England to promote the planting of one million trees in neighbourhoods where people live and work. The campaign ran over four years from 2011 to 2015, and was the first such initiative since Plant A Tree In '73.
Background
The campaign aimed to halt the ongoing decline in urban and semi-urban tree planting in England. The decline was highlighted by a survey of urban trees in England carried out in 2005, which found that there had been a 'big reduction' in urban tree planting leading to an 'unsatisfactory age structure' with too few young trees, and which concluded that the issue should be 'urgently addressed'. In London a separate 2007 report, Chainsaw Massacre, found that there were concerns about planting rates in some boroughs, and that mature broadleafstreet trees throughout London were under 'severe threat' due to a mixture of development pressures, reduced expenditure, public apathy and antipathy, and concerns by insurance companies, solicitors and home-owners over subsidence. Both reports also expressed concern over the practice of planting smaller ornamental species rather than native broadleaf trees such as London plane, lime and oak.
Funding
Funding of £4.2m was to be made available for community, civic and other non-profit groups from April 2011. In addition to covering planting costs, grants could be used for related purposes such as community involvement, site surveys and the provision of expert advice. £4m of the funding allocation was being promised by the Forestry Commission through 'efficiency savings and reprioritisation', while the remaining £200,000 will come from the existing London Tree and Woodland Community Grant. The independently chaired Big Tree Plant Grants Panel included representatives from civil society organisations, DEFRA, and the Forestry Commission, and met each spring and summer to award funds. In advance of the main funding, Keep Britain Tidy - one of the partners supporting the initiative - had already invited applications for planting kits from schools in the Government's Eco-School programme.
Criticism and reactions
The funding arrangements, specifically the fact that the grants would normally only cover up to 75% of the cost of each scheme, was criticised by some as favouring better-off over deprived communities. Other projects which coordinated external funding from local stakeholders were successful. The government claimed that “Seventy percent of the trees in The Big Tree Plant programme are being planted in England’s most deprived areas.”
