Plans to invest £100,000 in planting more trees in Dudley
Proposals to invest £100,000 in improving tree maintenance and plant more trees across Dudley will be up for discussion next week.
Dudley Council is looking to invest the cash in increase tree maintenance following requests from residents for more inspections and work on trees.
The funding would also be used to improve the overall condition of the council's own tree stock on both on the highway and across parks and open spaces.
There are plans for significant investment in tree planting, with £10,000 going towards improving tree cover in the Dudley borough’s parks and open spaces following a review of the council's tree strategy. The funding will also provide for replacement tree planting for trees which have previously been felled due to their poor condition and enhancing overall tree cover.
Councillor Karen Shakespeare, Dudley Council's cabinet member for environment, highways and street services, said: "Trees perform a vital role in our ecosystem. They are home to wildlife, flora and fauna, help to clean our air and make our borough a more attractive, welcoming place.
"This investment will allow us to maintain our current stock, but also plant for the future so that we continue to make Dudley one of the greenest borough’s in the Black Country.
"Dudley borough’s green spaces make up 30 per cent of the borough’s surface area and there are 1,300 hectares of publicly accessible green space.
"In addition to thousands of small areas of open space, Dudley has 59 parks and 28 of these are community parks are located within a 15 minute walk of the people who live in the borough."
The plans would be discussed at Dudley Council's cabinet meeting on February 12, ahead of decisions being made at full council in March.
