£560k boost to Manchester’s tree coverage

Manchester City Council has received £560,000 of funding from the Urban Tree Challenge Fund to continue its roll-out of trees across the city. 

Since 2020 the council have secured a total of £1.8m for tree planting, including its own £1m Tree Action MCR programme. 

The Urban Tree Challenge Fund provides 80% of the cost for planting large trees and the cost of their establishment over three years after planting.

The funding supports the cost of buying a tree, planting in grass or hard surfaces, the cost of basic protection and the labour required to plant it.

The cost of supplying and planting a tree in grass is £216.36, in a hard surface this rises to £271.58.

Manchester will see a total of 828 trees being planted in streets, parks and public spaces during the 2024-2026 planting seasons, while the city’s highways will see a 16% increase in the number of Council-managed trees.

The council have identified Cheetham Hill Road as being an area with particularly low tree cover – primarily because of the ubiquity of hard surfaces – and will also focus on getting trees established here.

Using trees to improve air quality is a complicated and much researched subject. Expensive modelling studies are the only way to properly estimate the impact of planting trees in an urban environment, but the Urban Tree Manual suggests three rules of thumb:

• Planting a dense canopy to extend the separation between people and the sources of pollution will always result in improved air quality below the canopy
• A dense canopy enclosing people and sources of pollution (e.g. traffic) will tend to increase air pollution concentrations
• Enhancing the ‘crinkliness’ of the grey and green urban surfaces (i.e. aerodynamic roughness and land-use heterogeneity) stirs the air and so disperses pollution

Councillor Tracy Rawlins, Executive Member for Clean Air, Environment and Transport, said: ‘Planting trees is crucial to achieving Manchester’s zero-carbon goals and creating a healthier, greener city for future generations.

‘With the support of this funding, we are not only enhancing our green spaces and improving air quality, but we are also providing significant environmental and community benefits. From boosting local biodiversity such as promoting wildlife, this initiative will make a lasting impact across Manchester, especially in areas that need it most.’