From today, residents and local businesses in Merton, South West London, can all play their part in greening the borough’s streets. Using the Trees for Streets online sponsorship platform, you’ll be able select the exact location you’d like the council to plant a new tree. This can be outside your house, in your street, or maybe outside your kids school. You can also sponsor a tree in a local park.
how does it work?
Individuals, families, neighbours, community groups and local businesses can all request to sponsor a tree in their community using the Trees for Streets easy online platform.
The sponsorship contributes towards the costs of getting a new tree planted, watered and looked after. All trees are five to seven-years-old when planted, standing 3-4 metres tall, thus making an instant impact. Residents can also club together to fund community trees through our in-house crowdfunding platform.
you choose the location
Anyone can sponsor a tree in Merton and can request for it to be planted in a location that is meaningful and personal to them. This might be outside their house or apartment building. It might be outside a school or on a busy retail street. They simply provide some basic details about the desired location on the Trees for Streets platform, along with donation details.
The council will survey the location
The council will then visit the location to check for suitability, considering nearby street furniture, such as benches and lamp posts, as well as driveways, access routes and electricity lines running overhead. If the location is suitable for planting, then the sponsor will be informed, their donation payment taken, and the tree will be planted during the forthcoming winter. It’s that simple.
The council will even create new tree pits if there hasn’t been a tree at the selected before.
trees from the mayor of london
For every tree sponsored locally before the end of July 2023 the Mayor of London will also sponsor a tree to be planted in a priority location in the borough. In a school street, in a less affluent low tree cover neighbourhood, or to create shading around kids playgrounds.
Connecting communities with trees
This partnership between the London Borough of Merton and Trees for Streets empowers local people to make a positive difference in their neighbourhood and connects them with nature – something we all sorely need.
street trees are important
With the adverse effects of climate change, pollution, a degraded environment and increasingly dense urban living, we need trees now more than ever.
Trees play an important role in helping us cope with the impacts of climate change, such as overheating and flooding, as well as improving air quality and making our streets more liveable.
Street trees do so much for us:
- Improve air quality by acting like natural filters
- Capture carbon dioxide and produce oxygen
- Absorb air pollution
- Improve our health and wellbeing – both physically and mentally
- Provide a home for wildlife
- Protect us from flooding
- Create shading and cooling – so important in towns and cities
- Make the neighbourhoods where we live that bit nicer
Why we do this
Simeon Linstead, Founder and Project Director, Trees for Streets:
“The charity is delighted to be working in Merton. The impact trees can have on our lives is quite remarkable, and we want everyone to experience the benefits of having nature at their doorsteps. We’re excited that as of today, Merton residents, community groups and local businesses can all take action to improve their neighbourhood by sponsoring new trees.”
Cllr Natasha Irons, Cabinet Member for Local Environment, Green spaces and Climate Change:
“Merton Council has launched an ambitious new strategy to increase tree canopy across the borough by 10% by 2050. From March 2022 – March 2023 we’re planting 10,000 trees, making it one of our biggest plantings years to date. As well as planting new trees in the future, we need to make sure we look after the trees we currently have.
“Joining Trees for Streets, will enable our residents to get directly involved with tree planting and watering to support the local environment and their immediate neighbourhoods, while helping to make Merton a greener, cleaner, more resilient and welcoming place to live. It will also help us plant even more trees where they are wanted”.
Join us
To find out more about sponsoring a street tree, or even a park tree, in Merton, visit www.TreesForStreets.org/Merton or drop us an email at team@treesforstreets.org.
If you live somewhere else, then just search to see whether your council is running a scheme.
