Plant trees on plain streets

To plant a tree along a street where there are none.

Priority are shopping streets, eg Sandy Park, Brislington.

Look up and down residential streets, especially in medium or less desirable areas, you'll find there are many without trees.

Why the contribution is important

Environmental pollution control, appearance, scale, biodiversity, economic value,  sense of wellbeing etc. Trees provide many benefits!

Buildings and streetscapes outlive trees, so many trees, when old, are cut and not necessarily replaced, leaving the streets bare.

by user997267 on December 16, 2013 at 10:21AM

Current Rating

Average rating: 4.1
Based on: 18 votes

Comments

  • Posted by user997267 December 16, 2013 at 12:24

    A suggestion for a tree on a residential street is the junction Sandholme Road/ Sandown Road. There's easily enough space at the junction to reduced road size and plant a tree.

  • Posted by user236215 December 18, 2013 at 10:52

    Completely agree - so many benefits and good examples from NY of progressive action. But with huge local authority cuts how could this be financed? Perhaps local businesses could sponsor a tree or could it be funded by the public through a kick-starter campaign?

  • Posted by user412750 December 19, 2013 at 12:51

    Excellent idea. But I would like to suggest that they should be native trees, preferably endemic to the Bristol area, and should be species that provide high value to insects and birds to maximise their biodiversity value as well as their aesthetic and amenity value to us. Also, that they should be relatively small trees, rather than the huge forest trees favoured by the Victorians.

  • Posted by user180659 December 19, 2013 at 21:37

    Good idea. Street trees add so much to the ambience of an area. It makes it more pleasant to walk and cycle and cars drive slower (apparently), mind you they can't go much lower than 20!. They increase the house values in the street by 3% to 5% sometimes more so if a street has say 50 x £100,000 homes the increase in value could be 50 x £3,000 = £150,000. This could be achieved by planting 20 trees in the street costing say £50,000 if they need properly engineered pits so just £1,000 per home. That's a great return on investment, but you have the problem of the free rider effect which means one or two people could opt out of paying but still get the benefit. That stops the whole program as its unfair if some people can get away with it. This can be overcome by setting up a street management company (unfortunately this doesn't exist except for unadopted roads). Perhaps George could offer £500 each off our council tax if street management companies were set up - it would have to be compulsory a bit like a "business improvement districts". Sorry this was so long......

  • Posted by user690930 December 21, 2013 at 16:05

    Trees will suck in nasty emmissions
    Nature ALWAYS knows best

  • Posted by user411811 January 14, 2014 at 11:29

    I agree with jseymour, brilliant idea!
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