Agenda item

Report of the Director of Streetscene and Regulatory Services

The Cabinet considered a report of the Director of Streetscene and Regulatory Services that sought approval to adopt the City Council’s Urban Forestry Strategy following three phases of consultation which were approved by the Cabinet Member for Policing and Equalities at his meeting held on 21st March 2022 (his minute 31/21 referred).

The Strategy was considered by the Business, Economy and Enterprise Scrutiny Board (3) at their meeting on the 6^th November 2019 (their minute 21/19 referred) as part of the initial consultation stage at which the Board made several recommendations which were set out in section 3 of the report. All recommendations had been incorporated into the strategy document and action plan. The details were to be presented to the Scrutiny Board at a future meeting.

The draft Strategy recognised the value and importance of the urban forest particularly in mitigating pollution, heat, flooding and wind as well as its value towards biodiversity, wildlife, the community's health and wellbeing, overall quality of the urban environment and economic value.

Reductions in government spending had led to a decreased spend in greenspaces and as a result, lack of funding had been identified as a main constraint in both improving and maintaining the tree stock. Focus should be made in maximising funding through Planning Section 106 agreements, exploiting opportunities arising from Regeneration and Business Improvement Districts in establishing sustainable urban forests, along with establishing effective partnerships with developers and landowners.

The importance of strategically managing the urban forest was highlighted and the draft Strategy makes reference to a number of Coventry City Council Policies which touch the City’s urban forest including the Coventry City Council Area Action Plan, Development Strategy and the recently adopted Greenspace Strategy.

The Strategy acknowledges the significant work done by Coventry’s Urban Forestry team to explore new ways of working and provide better value for money in tree maintenance. A number of aspects were recognised as significant including the management of all street trees, the adoption of Tree Risk management processes and procedures to ensure the establishment of new trees.

Although measures were in place at Coventry to protect urban trees, the draft strategy suggested that the need to communicate the benefits of trees as well as enforcement was important and identified a number of issues for consideration including, policies which took into consideration the life cycle of the tree and its value to the environment, strong policies on enforcement and sustainable compensation measures and the protection of ancient woodlands and veteran trees.

There was a need to develop a resilient and sustainable urban forest which should be directed by strong policies to establish wide ranging tree sizes and species distributions. A number of aspects were seen as important in achieving this such as tree mapping, to identify gaps and establish population improvements, achieving a balance of numbers and genetic diversity, aiming to plant more and fell less, developing a species mix to protect against the impacts of disease and pathogens.

The City Council required an Urban Forestry Strategy in order to develop a resilient and sustainable urban forest achieving a balance of numbers and genetic diversity, aiming to plant more and fell less, developing a species mix to protect against the impacts of disease and pathogens. It would also help the City to continue to fight the causes and outcomes of global warming. A copy of the Draft Strategy was attached as an Appendix to the report.

RESOLVED that the Cabinet approves the adoption of the Urban Forestry Strategy as appended to the report.