Tree planting

The climate emergency poses a significant challenge, and trees play a key role in helping us to adapt to changing conditions. 

Tree survey

We would like to hear your thoughts about trees in our borough, to help us develop our new tree planting strategy. 

Have your say

Planting new trees

We are committed to increasing the benefits of trees through increasing the canopy cover across the borough. In practice, this means planting more than we remove.

All our trees are planted in accordance with our sustainable planting tree policy. As much as we would like to be able to consult with the public and fulfil residents' requests to plant, relocate or remove new trees from outside their properties, it is not feasible to do so.

However, we do carefully position new trees with the aim of avoiding future conflicts with adjacent buildings and infrastructure and we carefully select species to support this aim.

Planting update

The planting season began at the start of November, and we will be planting over 800 trees by the end of March 2025. Some are replacements for felled or failed trees, while others will be planted in entirely new locations, in various parks and streets across the borough.

View list of planting locations for the 2024/25 planting season.

This schedule is largely made up of replacements. If you cannot find a location on the schedule, it will likely be included in a list of future planting locations, coming soon.

As of 4 December 2024, we have reached 30% of our tree planting target, with just under four months of the planting season remaining. This table gives a breakdown of the number of plantings per ward.

Number of trees to be planted in each ward

Ward	Target	Achieved so far
Barnes	58	9
East Sheen	53	5
Fulwell & Hampton Hill	62	16
Ham, Petersham and Richmond Riverside	87	36
Hampton	32	9
Hampton North	12	2
Hampton Wick and South Teddington	30	11
Heathfield	25	5
Kew	39	22
Mortlake and Barnes Common	51	10
North Richmond	49	17
South Richmond	31	7
South Twickenham	74	26
St Margarets and North Twickenham	38	20
Teddington	44	26
Twickenham Riverside	63	19
West Twickenham	59	3
Whitton	34	13
Total	841	256

Species selection

A list of species can be found in the planting list, which we will be adding to over the next few months.

Location selection

We have ambitious planting targets to meet, driven by the commitments we have made in The Corporate Plan and Climate Emergency strategy and action plan.

Tree planting location requests are not typically considered because we have stated aims to increase tree stock across the borough, with finite resources to do so. Therefore, it is important that trees are planted in a systematic way rather than haphazardly across the borough.

Tree roots

Many of our residents complain about tree roots damaging pavements, resulting in patch repairs. To tackle this, we now plant trees in bespoke tree pits that contain root-directing barriers to encourage roots to grow away from the pavement surface and minimise the potential for damage.  

Replacing removed trees

We are committed to replanting after tree removal, as part of the commitment within the Corporate Plan and in response to the Climate Emergency:

• When a tree is removed before 31 May, we aim to replace it in the next planting season, which runs from November of the year of removal, to March the following year 
• When a tree is removed after 31 May, we aim to replace it in the season after next, which runs from November of the year following removal to March of the year after that 
• Newly planted or young trees that fail or are damaged will be replaced in the next available planting season, regardless of the removal date

Please contact us if you have a query about replacing trees.

Tree stumps

After trees are removed the stumps and woody roots are removed, and either a new pit is created straight away, or the pavement is repaired and temporarily paved over until the new pit can be created, in preparation for a new tree. Please note, tree stumps are not removed immediately following tree removal. They are left in situ, at a specified height, so that they are obvious, and not causing a trip hazard.

Commemorative trees

Sadly, we cannot plant or allow the planting of commemorative trees. This is because we cannot guarantee that the tree is going to establish or be free from vandalism, the result of which can be very distressing for the families involved. 

We do however run a commemorative benches scheme. For more information view Memorial seats in parks.