MD3189 Trees for London Programme 2023-25

1.1.    The extreme temperatures experienced in Summer 2022 demonstrated how vulnerable London is to the effects of climate change. The heatwaves and surface-water flooding reinforced the urgency of the need to increase tree canopy cover to help limit the impacts of the climate emergency and ecological crisis. Therefore, the Mayor funded the £3.6m Trees for London programme, aimed at planting trees for shade, on streets, and in playgrounds and green spaces.
1.2.    The Trees for London programme built on the work the Mayor has already been doing to support tree planting and green infrastructure. Since 2016, the Mayor has funded the planting of more than 470,000 trees across London, including two major woodland creation projects, creating an additional 85 hectares of new accessible green space in the Green Belt. The Mayor has made more than £30m available for green infrastructure programmes supporting green space projects in all boroughs and the City of London.
1.3.    The first year of the Trees for London programme (2022-23) funded the planting of 41,971 new trees across London – comprising 41,149 trees given away free to community groups and schools, and 822 street trees planted. The programme has also funded an additional four boroughs to enrol in a platform that helps local residents and businesses sponsor street trees. The second tree-planting season of the programme (2023-24) is expected to deliver more than 40,000 trees to Londoners.
1.4.    Since the programme commenced, several opportunities to increase the scale of tree planting have emerged. To ensure that the Trees for London programme can maintain momentum and build on its success, this Mayoral Decision (MD) seeks approval to reallocate £304,000 to new and existing projects within the Trees for London programme budget (MD3032) in 2023-24. This funding is available for reallocation as a result of delays to expenditure in other elements of the programme.
1.5.    The projects to which funding would be reallocated comprise a mixture of tree planting and supporting work. They are listed at paragraph 2.5 in Table 1 and summarised at paragraphs 1.6-1.15. They aim to increase tree canopy cover in London through several complementary approaches, supporting and encouraging boroughs, community groups, schools and Londoners to plant trees on streets and walking routes, and in green spaces and playgrounds. This will be achieved through collaboration with several organisations in the London Urban Forest Partnership, a network of organisations working together to protect, manage and enhance the capital’s trees and woodlands. 

London Community Tree Packs
1.6.    Funded by the GLA, The Conservation Volunteers’ (TCV) London Community Tree Packs project has been very successful. It has delivered more than 40,000 trees in its first year (2022-23), and is already oversubscribed for its second year (2023-24). The expectation is that by the end of the 2023-24 planting season, it will have delivered more than 80,000 trees to around 500 community groups, schools and housing associations. The GLA already funds this project through the Trees for London programme, and it is proposed to increase this funding by £60,000 in 2023-24 to deliver an additional 20,000 trees (for a total of 60,000 trees in 2023-24) to meet demand.
1.7.    It is also proposed that the GLA allocates £5,000 to a new project to support the first year of a two-year, London-wide evaluation of the London Community Tree Packs project. This budget will enable TCV to tailor its London survey metrics to align more closely with those prioritised by the Mayor – in particular, assessing the equality, diversity and inclusion of the programme. It will also enable TCV to carry out in-depth engagement with four community groups in London to understand the environmental, social and cultural impact of the community tree packs.

Urban Tree Challenge Fund
1.8.    The Urban Tree Challenge fund (UTCF) supports street tree planting in urban areas. It is funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and coordinated by the Forestry Commission. Under MD3032, the Mayor approved the GLA’s coordination of applications for the fifth round of the UTCF (as for the first and third rounds), with up to £500,000 allocated to match-fund that bid. The minimum threshold for application has been reduced from £500,000 to £10,000, so GLA coordination is no longer necessary to enable boroughs to apply. However, 20 per cent match-funding is still required for boroughs to be eligible for the UTCF.
1.9.    Fourteen boroughs  have requested that the GLA match-fund their UTCF applications to a total of £669,575, which is more than the budget approved under MD3032. Therefore, it is proposed to increase the match-funding available for the UTCF by £170,000, which will be sufficient to support all boroughs needing match-funding to access UTCF grants. This increase in funding will leverage an additional £680,000 on top of the £2m funding the existing budget would secure, for a total of more than £2.6m in government funding. 

Young Ambassadors tree planting
1.10.    The Young Ambassadors Programme is part of the Mayor’s New Deal for Young People recovery mission, which aims to support young people in need, particularly those facing the greatest barriers to realising their potential. The programme encourages and supports young people aged 8-25 to engage in social action on local issues that they care about, in a way that will improve their life chances and build life-long skills. Since 2013, Young Ambassadors have improved their schools and communities through projects addressing key Mayoral priorities – such as serious youth violence, the environment, gender equality, health and community integration. Over the life of the programme, it has engaged 2,200 schools, with 460,000 students actively volunteering in their local community.
1.11.    As part of the programme, there has been a significant interest in tree planting among young people and their teachers. As well as supporting young people’s health and wellbeing,  tree planting encourages community participation in later life, helping ensure that more people from a more diverse demographic can play a role as green stewards of London’s future.
1.12.    It is proposed that the GLA provides £47,000 in 2023-24 as a contribution to TCV’s programme costs for a new project of tree planting and activity days that will support learning about trees, planting and maintenance. This will be a new element of the Trees for London programme, and will support 20 schools participating in the Young Ambassadors scheme. The investment will also help to identify ways to further embed environmental learning (including tree stewardship) into youth programmes, and provide opportunities for marginalised young Londoners to engage in positive social action in their local communities through tree planting. It could also potentially increase and diversify a field where a skills gap has been identified by introducing young Londoners to the opportunities for arboricultural careers. 

London Urban Forest Plan delivery
1.13.    The London Urban Forest Plan (LUFP) sets out the goals and priority actions needed to protect, manage and expand the capital’s urban forest, whilst promoting its benefits to, and engaging, landowners, managers and the wider public. The GLA coordinates the delivery of the LUFP with the Forestry Commission. Actions in the Plan are delivered with the 25 members of the London Urban Forest Partnership.
1.14.    The GLA coordinated a bid to Defra’s Trees Call to Action Fund (TCAF) on behalf of the London Urban Forest Partnership to kick start the delivery of the LUFP. The GLA won that bid, and manages the funding from Defra alongside match-funding from GLA core funds (see MD2994). Defra’s funding supports a coordinator and seven projects to deliver elements of the LUFP. These projects tackle the strategic and foundational barriers to increasing and maintaining London’s urban forest. 
1.15.    A reallocation of £22,000 is proposed to fulfil the GLA’s match-funding commitment for the TCAF 2024-25 and to progress LUFP goals. This new match-funding requirement is the result of a reprofile of the original match-fund amount included in MD2994. 
 

Objectives
2.1.    The proposed activities will contribute to meeting the objectives of the Green New Deal mission. It will do so by:
·    improving London’s natural environment and air quality; and tackling the climate and ecological emergencies 
·    promoting and incentivising activities that sustain and grow London’s green economy 
·    prioritising interventions that reduce health inequalities and social injustices 
·    engaging Londoners and businesses in the journey to become a zero-pollution and greener city.
2.2.    The activities will help deliver against the ambitions of the London Environment Strategy to:
·    develop programmes and deliver projects, including a major tree-planting programme, to ensure that London’s urban forest is maintained and expanded
·    reduce the impacts of climate change, and help store carbon
·    improve air and water quality, and reduce flood risk
·    promote healthier lives, reduce car dependency, and encourage more walking and cycling
·    improve biodiversity and ecological resilience
·    make more than half of London’s area green by 2050
·    increase London’s canopy cover by 10 per cent by 2050 (from 21 per cent to 23.1 per cent)
·    back greater community involvement in the improvement and management of London’s green spaces and natural environment 
·    retain existing trees, and plant new ones, to protect canopy cover that will provide shade. 
2.3.    They will support the goals of the LUFP to:
•    increase the number of trees on London’s streets, and in its parks and green spaces, particularly in areas of low canopy cover
•    create more woodland, especially species-rich woodland, in London, particularly in the green belt
•    ensure that high-quality, up-to-date information on the extent, condition and benefits of London’s urban forest is accessible to land managers, decision-makers and the public.
Outcomes
2.4.    The funding will help to increase London’s tree canopy cover and contribute to achieving the goals in the LUFP. It will engage Londoners in the journey to become a zero-pollution and greener city through planting opportunities for young people. Projects will be focused on areas where existing tree cover is low and climate risk is high; and in some of London’s most deprived communities. The outputs and outcomes of each programme are set out in Table 1, below, along with the total expenditure. Overall, it is anticipated that this programme will fund the planting of approximately 1,000 large ‘standard’ trees and 20,000 ‘whips’ (or small trees). As set out in Table 1, this depends on opportunities for planting.

Table 1 – Tree-planting programme 

3.1.    Under section 149 of the Equality Act 2010, as a public authority, the Mayor of London must have ‘due regard’ for the need to eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation; and to advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations, between people who have a protected characteristic  and those who do not. This involves having due regard for the need to remove or minimise any disadvantage suffered by those who share a relevant protected characteristic; taking steps to meet the different needs of such people; and encouraging them to participate in public life or in any other activity where their participation is disproportionately low.
3.2.    The programmes outlined in this MD form part of the policies and proposals in the London Environment Strategy, which has been informed by a full integrated impact assessment, including consideration of equalities.  The Equalities Assessment Report for the London Environment Strategy noted that exposure to poor environmental conditions is much higher among Black, Asian and minority ethnic Londoners.
3.3.    Black, Asian and minority ethnic Londoners, and lower-income Londoners, are more likely to live in areas of deficiency of access to green space, or in areas where green-space quality is poor. GLA research has found that women, adult Londoners aged 25 and under, lower-income Londoners and social renters visit parks less often.  National research has found that Black, Asian and minority ethnic people are least likely to visit green spaces. Similarly, 21 per cent of households in London lack access to a private or shared garden. Across England, Black, Asian and minority ethnic people are less likely to have access to a garden than White people. 
3.4.    Areas with higher levels of multiple deprivation are more likely to have less than the recommended minimum 20 per cent canopy cover.  Analysis of the Tree Canopy Cover Prioritisation Tool indicates that London wards in the most deprived decile of the Index of Multiple Deprivation are almost twice as likely to have less than 20 per cent canopy cover when compared with those in the least deprived decile. In addition, wards with the highest levels of multiple deprivation have an average of 16 per cent canopy cover compared to 22 per cent in the least deprived decile.
3.5.    Climate change will disproportionately affect those least able to respond and recover from it. Poorer Londoners will find it more difficult to recover from flooding and will suffer more from the impacts of the urban heat island effect. Extreme heat events will have a greater impact on older people; very young children; socially isolated people; and people with existing health conditions.
3.6.    The proposed work outlined in this MD responds to, and aims to tackle, these disparities. The tree planting supported by the UTCF will be focused in areas of low tree canopy cover, high climate risk and poor performance against the Indices of Multiple Deprivation. Tree canopy is significant in terms of resilience to the effects of climate change (higher temperatures), while reduced or limited canopy cover is significantly detrimental to people’s ability to cope with and adapt to environmental challenges. The Community Tree Packs project will actively reach out to community groups, residents’ groups and faith groups, and encourage them to get involved in tree planting – in particular, enabling Londoners without access to a garden to participate. The collaboration with the Young Ambassadors programme will engage marginalised young Londoners who might not otherwise engage with nature to have a positive social and environmental impact on their local communities through tree planting.
 

Risks
4.1.    The key risks associated with the planting programme, and relevant mitigation measures, are set out in the table below:

Links to Mayoral strategies and priorities
4.2.    The proposed work outlined in this MD will help deliver GLA priorities to bring nature closer to Londoners; and to catalyse the investment needed to fund mass tree planting. It will also contribute towards the following:
•    London Environment Strategy Policy 5.1.1: protect, enhance and increase green areas in the city, to provide green infrastructure services and benefits that London needs now and in the future.
•    London Environment Strategy Proposal 5.1.1.f: back greater community involvement in the improvement and management of London’s green spaces and natural environment.
•    London Environment Strategy Objective 5.1: increase tree canopy cover by 10 per cent, and to ensure that over half of London is green by 2050.
•    London Environment Strategy Objective 5.2: conserving and enhancing wildlife and natural habitats.
•    London Environment Strategy Policy 5.3.1: address underinvestment, and improve the management of London’s green infrastructure, by developing new business models and improving the awareness of the benefits of London’s green infrastructure.
•    Inclusive London Strategic Objective 12: work with partners to help ensure our approach to improving green spaces is inclusive.
•    London Health Inequalities Strategy Objective 3.3: a greener city where all Londoners have access to good quality green spaces.
•    London Transport Strategy Policy 2: seek to make London a city where people choose to walk and cycle more often by improving street environments, making it easier for everyone to get around on foot and by cycle, and promoting the benefits of active travel.
•    London Transport Strategy Policy 8: enhance London’s natural and built environment by: a) ensuring that transport schemes protect existing green infrastructure where possible, or – if there is a loss – providing new green infrastructure in order to deliver a net gain in biodiversity; and b) seeking additional opportunities to build new green infrastructure into the existing transport estate.
•    London Transport Strategy Policy 10: use the Healthy Streets Approach to deliver coordinated improvements to public transport and streets to provide an attractive whole journey experience that will facilitate mode shift away from the car.
•    New Deal for Young People aims: to build a fairer, more equal and more prosperous London, where no-one is left behind.
•    New Deal for Young People outcomes: improved wellbeing; improved socio-emotional learning; improved relationships; and improved employment opportunities.
•    London Rewilding Taskforce: activities or interventions that aim to increase or enhance nature in the city that are designed and managed in the spirit of the principles of rewilding. These typically involve high levels of human intervention and may require technical design to ensure they work e.g., sustainable drainage systems and green roofs. They may have biodiversity enhancement objectives, and contribute to a nature recovery network, but do not strive to become fully fledged natural ecosystems. Examples of this include: green roofs; community and private wildlife gardening; wildflower verges; pollinator highways; avenues of trees; wilder park management (scrub and natural regeneration); and pocket parks.

Consultations and impact assessments

4.3.    Consultation for the 2018 London Environment Strategy indicated that planting more trees was consistently well supported by Londoners. Respondents also felt that more needed to be done to protect London’s trees, and many had the perception that tree cover in the capital is being reduced.
 
4.4.    The Integrated Impact Assessment for the strategy concluded that no negative effects were identified for the Equality Impact Assessment in relation to strategic green infrastructure polices; and that improving the quality of greenspaces would have positive impacts on addressing inequalities in access to greenspace and nature. 

Conflicts of interest

4.5.    There are no conflicts of interest to declare from any of those involved in the drafting or clearance of this MD.
Monitoring, reporting and evaluation
4.6.    Projects within the programme will have grant agreements with the GLA, which will include requirements to monitor and report on project progress. Final reporting will include evidence of expenditure and achievements of milestones and outputs. Programme evaluation will be coordinated by the GLA project manager. 
4.7.    The GLA’s Environment and Energy Unit has committed to producing updates to the London Tree Canopy Cover Map every five years, allowing us to track the cumulative effect of planting programmes such as this.

Subsidy control
4.8.    The proposed awards for grant funding to TCV, the LUPF and the UTCF do not constitute subsidies for the purpose of the Subsidy Control Act 2022 because none of the proposed recipients are engaging in economic activity – i.e. they are not operating on a market in which there is competition.
 

5.1.    Approval is requested for expenditure of up to £304,000 to enhance the Trees for London programme in 2023-24, comprising:
•    £112,000 to TCV for 20,000 extra free community trees; an evaluation of the social and environmental value of community trees; and a programme of tree planting and engagement as part of the Young Ambassadors programme
•    £170,000 to London boroughs to match-fund street tree planting funded by the Forestry Commission’s UTCF
•    £22,000 to match-fund LUFP recipients of Defra’s TCAF.
5.2.    This expenditure will be funded from the Tree Planting budget within the Environment and Energy Unit’s approved budget envelope for 2023-24. Funds are available due to delays in spending on some of the other Trees for London-funded projects, which will now deliver in 2024-25 (subject to budget confirmation).
5.3.    All expenditure will be incurred by 31 March 2024.
5.4.    All relevant budget adjustments will be made.
 

6.1.    The foregoing sections of this report indicate that:
•    the decisions requested of the Mayor concern the exercise of the GLA’s general powers, falling within the GLA’s statutory powers to do such things considered to further or that are facilitative of, or conducive or incidental to, the promotion of the improvement of the environment in Greater London
•    in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought, officers have complied with the GLA’s related statutory duties to:
o    pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people
o    consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom
o    consult with appropriate bodies.
6.2.    In taking the decisions requested, the Mayor must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty – namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010; and to advance equality of opportunity, and foster good relations, between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, sex, age, sexual orientation, religion) and persons who do not (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Mayor should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.
6.3.    If the Mayor makes the decisions sought, officers must ensure that:
•    no reliance should be placed or commitments made based on funding: from third parties (such as for example LUFC or UTCF funding); future GLA budgets, or current underspend until legally binding agreements and all approvals for the receipt and use of the same are in place
•    to the extent that expenditure concerns the award of grant funding, it is distributed fairly, transparently, in manner that affords value for money and in accordance with the requirements of the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code; and grant-funding agreements are put in place (or varied as applicable) between, and executed by, the GLA and recipients before any commitment to fund is made.
6.4.    Officers have confirmed, at paragraph 4.8 above, that the proposed award of grant funding does not constitute a subsidy for the purposes of the Subsidy Control Act 2022 because it does not confer an economic advantage on one or more enterprise.
 

7.1.    The project will be delivered according to the timetable outlined below.

* May be subject to change.