Nottingham City Council’s Public Realm team is getting behind an annual campaign to celebrate trees and the impact they have on the environment and on wellbeing.

From this weekend, The Tree Council is asking the public to get involved with National Tree Week – a celebration to raise awareness and appreciation for trees, and to encourage planting. As part of National Tree Week, tree-related events – including planting, walks, talks, wood fairs and tree dressing – will be taking place all over the UK. The events coincide with the onset of the winter tree-planting season. The festival runs until 3 December.

To mark the start of the week, Cllr Dave Trimble, Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Culture will be planting five trees for Nottingham City Council at Lenton Recreation Ground on Monday 25 November at 9.30am

Alongside National Tree week, the City Council will also be taking part in the Big Climate Fightback initiative. For this, The Woodland Trust is calling on one million people to pledge to plant a tree to help fight the climate emergency.

On 27 November, Deputy Leader of the City Council and Portfolio Holder for Energy and Environment – Cllr Sally Longford will join a group of volunteers from local company, Experian to plant 300 ‘whips’ (baby trees) at Southglade Park.

While these initiatives are important to the ongoing work of the Parks and Open spaces service, these tree planting initiatives will form part of a greater manifesto pledge from the city which is to plant 10,000 trees by the end of 2023 and to be carbon neutral by 2028.

Further tree planting ceremonies will take place on 6 December where Cllr Sally Longford along with 100 children from Farnborough Academy School will be planting 1650 ‘whips’ at Clifton Playing Fields. This will be followed by the end of the year with 1200 ‘whips’ being planted at Colwick Park.

In the New Year, February 2020 will see a further 2805 ‘whips’ planted at Southglade Park, and in Nov 2020, 3200 ‘whips’ will be settled at Haddon Wood, Bilborough. Funding for the first stage of or planting has come from Trees for Cities and Nottingham City Council.

Cllr Sally Longford, Portfolio Holder for Energy and Environment said:“We are so pleased to be able to do our bit to highlight National Tree Week and support the Big Climate Fight Back as well as working towards our extremely important manifesto pledges for parks and neighbourhoods. We welcome these two major initiatives to kick start our plans to make sure the city and its residents benefit from better air quality and a more sustainable future.”

Cllr Dave Trimble, Portfolio Holder for Leisure and Culture said: “Adding new trees to the beautiful parks in the city is essential. Alongside fighting climate change and pollution, planting trees and volunteering is known to aid feelings of wellbeing and is great for the overall look and feel of the community; as well as attracting wildlife. It is a great project to get involved with because you can plant one tree in your back garden or get involved in bigger projects like ours and plant several.”

 For more information on how to get involved visit:  www.treecouncil.org.uk/Take-Part/National-Tree-Week