‘Tree deserts’ leaving millions in UK towns and cities exposed to air pollution, heat and poor health
Millions of people in UK towns and cities are living in “tree deserts”, with not enough trees to protect them from air pollution, heat, stress and ill health, campaigners warn.
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Trees in urban areas can provide shade and cooling in increasingly hot summers and reduce worsening flooding as the climate changes, cut air pollution, and alleviate stress and depression, the Woodland Trust said.
They can also boost wildlife, improve house prices and business investment, and create places where people want to live and work and can have healthy, active lifestyles, the charity said.
But the trust warns many towns and cities do not have enough tree cover in residential areas to meet the needs of their communities, putting them at risk of ill health, pollution and environmental harm.
It said there are stark inequalities in access to the benefits communities get from urban trees, with a north-south divide across the UK.
The Woodland Trust has drawn up “tree equity” scores, which look at the existing tree canopy cover in neighbourhoods, and cross-reference it with population density, local environmental conditions such as heat and air pollution, and social factors including deprivation, health inequalities and age.
These neighbourhood scores show where people do not have enough trees to meet their needs, rather than simply low or high tree cover.
The trust has used the data to highlight the towns and cities where the greatest proportion of people are living in neighbourhoods with “critically low” tree equity scores.
The analysis reveals 15 of the 20 worst-performing towns and cities for tree equity are in the north of England, and the north-east of England has no towns or cities in the top performing 100, the data show.
Clacton-on-Sea in Essex is the worst performing town or city in England, with almost all of its population in areas with critically low tree equity, while Holyhead in North Wales and Omagh in Northern Ireland have their entire population living with a lack of critical urban tree cover.
At the other end of the scale, leafy areas of south-east England dominate the rankings for best performing cities and towns, with places such as Winchester, Tunbridge Wells and St Albans providing enough tree cover to protect all residents.
In Scotland, Dumfries had the highest percentage of people at risk, with 86% of the urban population in neighbourhoods with critically low tree equity, while Edinburgh fares best with just 14% of people in urban areas exposed, the research suggests.
Caroline Gray, Woodland Trust tree equity programme officer, said: “These new figures reveal an injustice that is silently affecting the health of millions of people.
“More than a million people in the UK are living in these “tree deserts”, places of critically low tree equity where communities are missing out on the many benefits trees provide.
“That can mean hotter homes and streets, dirtier air, higher rates of asthma and heart disease, and poorer physical and mental health.”
But, she said: “Low tree cover is a problem we can do something about.
“We must get trees into the greyest of UK streets and embed them into plans for new developments, so that all communities can benefit from greener, healthier and more resilient places to live, because the benefits trees provide should not depend on your postcode.”
The Woodland Trust is calling for efforts to plant more trees – with Ms Gray pointing to its free trees for schools and communities programme, where it has set a target for a fifth of tree packs to go to priority areas for tree equity.
Ms Gray also called for stronger protection of existing urban trees, including mature trees that are not ancient or veteran specimens, and efforts to ensure long-term care and maintenance of trees so they can live as long as possible to provide benefits.
And they need to be integrated into new developments, she said.
“We need to stop seeing a tree as this nice leafy thing that’s a nice thing to have, and we need to start seeing them as critical green infrastructure,” in the same way as traffic lights and utilities, she said.