About us
The new National Street Tree Sponsorship scheme
Trees for Streets is the National Street Tree Sponsorship scheme, co-founded by the national charity Trees for Cities and civic innovator Start with Local. We aim to make it easy for residents and organisations to donate to the planting and watering of trees in their streets and neighbourhoods. We host sponsorship schemes on behalf of local councils.
Giving residents the means to directly improve their neighbourhood, is a powerful way to increase community resilience, and helps dissolve barriers between councils and residents.
Street trees offer huge benefits for our own mental and physical wellbeing. They also capture carbon, absorb pollution, create shading and cooling, and just make where we live that much nicer.
Trees for Streets is an initiative by the national charity, Trees for Cities. The programme was co-founded in 2020 by Trees for Cities and local innovator, Start with Local.
Trees for Cities is an innovative charity improving lives by planting and caring for urban trees, transforming school playgrounds and inspiring local people to cultivate lasting change in their neighbourhoods.
With over 1.9 million urban trees planted across the UK, Trees for Cities has ambitious plans to tackle tree inequity, and bring the benefits of trees to the communities that need it most.
“This project mixes technology and local engagement, which can help amplify the aims of our charity by inspiring and empowering communities to take a leading role in greening their streets. There is the potential to leave a lasting legacy on every street up and down this country.”
DAVID ELLIOTT, CEO, TREES FOR CITIES
Start with Local is a social enterprise whose aim it is to try to solve some of society’s problems from a local starting point.
Set up as a design and delivery organisation, Start with Local understands how to weave together differing disciplines, from tech to marketing to community engagement, to come up with innovative ways of solving problems.
“Trees for Streets empowers residents to work with their local councils to make a difference to the world immediately outside their front door. Planting a tree in your street can be a powerful first step in a journey to strengthen your community and how you connect with the world.”
SIMEON LINSTEAD, CEO, START WITH LOCAL
This project has been supported from the start by the Forestry Commission, Defra and the Environment Team at the Greater London Authority (GLA)
In fact, Trees for Cities, together with the Forestry Commission, were involved in creating the new London Urban Forest Plan, which includes the Trees for Streets online platform to facilitate corporate and public sponsorship to support street tree and other planting and maintenance across London.
We worked with several councils and experts to build and develop Trees for Streets, including: Jon Parker at Arboricultural Association, Croydon Council, Tower Hamlets Council, Hillingdon Council, and were very thankful for all their advice and input.
Our next step was to launch a pilot in May 2021 with 8 councils, offering individual sponsorship.
The scheme has proven so successful that we’ve more than doubled the councils we work with, and have added new services including: Sponsorship of park trees, Watering Champions, crowdfunding, and corporate fundraising.
Are you a resident or community group who’d like to get trees planted in your street or in your neighbourhood? Or, if you work for a local authority and would like to discuss whether a street tree sponsorship scheme could work in your borough, we’d love to talk.
