Eastwood and Kimberley residents could receive free trees to help improve environment

Broxtowe Borough Council has been given £23,500 from the Urban Tree Fund which is designed to help “mitigate climate change and increase biodiversity”.

Council documents published ahead of the Climate Change and Environment Committee say the fund was “very heavily oversubscribed” which is “testament to the bid submitted by Broxtowe”.

The budget will also cover watering and nurturing the trees.

At a meeting on November 22, councillors also discussed plans to gift 500 trees to residents for planting in gardens.

The trees will cost the council £2,500 and a further £1,850 will be spent on distributing them in January 2022.

Council documents say: “The council has a target to plant 2,500 trees each year across the borough as part of the tree planting strand in the Climate Change Strategy and Green Futures programme.

“Following the success of previous year’s free fruit tree and ornamental tree initiatives, this year, as part of the contribution towards the target, 500 native trees are being offered to residents in the borough.

“Following a bid to the Urban Tree Fund notification has been received that the bid was successful with an award of £23,500.

“This is split between funding to supply and plant 56 Extra Heavy Standard trees and three years ongoing maintenance towards watering and aftercare of the trees.”