Colleagues in Streetscene are working hard behind the scenes on an ambitious aim to plant 108,000 trees across North Ayrshire.
The Council plans to meet this target, through our Tree Planting Strategy, as part of our drive to be carbon neutral by 2030.
To contribute to this, 2240 trees have been planted at Milgarholm Park – including native species such as hawthorn, hornbeam, sycamore, elm and willow. Planting took place in March and the trees are establishing well.
The Council declared a climate emergency in June 2019, setting a net zero emissions target for 2030, and the Sustainable North Ayrshire Strategy provides a route map to achieve this target, and also tackle both the climate and nature emergencies.
Streetscene Strategy Manager Martin Gorman has been involved in the tree planting at Milgarholm Park, and said: “It is vital that we continue to plant trees across the area. This will help us to work towards our 2030 traget. “As we all know, trees produce oxygen and help to clean the air we breathe. And they are also crucial when it comes to our wildlife, biodiversity and combatting climate change.”
Through the Woodland Grant Fund, communities across the six localities can play their part in the drive to see more trees being planted. This Fund delivers tree planting and woodland creation activity at grass roots level, by supporting new and developing tree planting projects, including the creation of community orchards.
This Fund delivers tree planting and woodland creation activity at grass roots level, by supporting new and developing tree planting projects, including the creation of community orchards.
The scheme has already proved successful, with thousands of trees having been planted throughout the mainland and on Arran.
A variety of groups have successfully received funding – with a limit of £5000 per year – to deliver projects ranging from the creation of small community fruit orchards to larger scale native woodland creation.
Martin added: “The tree-planting programme is progressing well, with almost 50,000 planted already. “It would be great to see any staff who are involved in community groups getting involved in the Woodland Grant Fund – or, indeed, helping to spread the word about it to help our tree-planting drive.”
