The East Riding of Yorkshire Community Tree Planting Fund is looking to support projects that will include creating new areas of native woodland, planting new clusters of native trees and hedgerows or establishing new groups of individual native standard trees.
While there are no restrictions as to who can apply the grants, which are administered by East Riding of Yorkshire Council's planning department, applications could come from individuals or groups, private and public landowners, farmers and land managers, community groups, businesses, community organisations, charities, town and parish councils, schools and faith groups.
Applications can be for large or small scale projects based in either rural or urban locations and can be for a new developments or to expand and improve existing areas and that have benefits for the community.
To be eligible for the grants, applications should meet some, or all, of the following criteria:
- to be of sufficient scale to make a beneficial impact to the area
- the planting activity comprises of solely native species appropriate to the area
- will deliver a clear benefit for wildlife
- will deliver a clear enhancement to local landscape character
- the community has been/will be involved in the project, such as development, planting, maintenance.
The fund is not primarily aimed for projects in domestic settings although applications may be considered in exceptional circumstances and if wider community benefits can be demonstrated.
There are 36 types of British native trees which people can choose from and these include alder, beech, silver birch, blackthorn, elder, hazel, holly, limes, field maple, oak, rowan, willow and yew.
The project will complement the Northern Forest project which aims to plant 50 million trees across an area stretching from Liverpool to East Yorkshire over a 25 year period.
Since 2018, over 100,000 trees have been planted across the East Riding and Hull through the Northern Forest project.
Councillor Mike Stathers, portfolio holder for enhancing communities at East Riding of Yorkshire Council, said; "The East Riding is well below the national average for tree coverage with around 2% of land classed as woodland.
"The aim of the fund is to encourage people such as businesses, community groups, private and public landowners to think about the space they have and consider a project to help increase the number of trees and shrubs across the East Riding."
Anyone who wishes to apply for a grant needs to register on the grants portal which can be found at https://eastridingofyorkshirecouncil.flexigrant.com or for further information email heywoods@eastriding.gov.uk
The closing date for applications is 30 August 2020.
