Tree plan a breath of fresh air (From Times Series)

Tree plan a breath of fresh air

12:09pm Friday 16th May 2008

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Just a few weeks into his mayoralty and Boris Johnson seems to have twigged that a green outlook for the city is the root to a better environment.

Following his manifesto pledge to make all areas of London “cleaner and greener”, he announced this week that he will plant 10,000 new trees to improve street scenery.

And I would like to think that the funding of this project is in some way down to my shared blog spot with the aforementioned Mr Johnson.

I can be modest enough to admit the link is probably indirect, but in my last entry, I discussed the need for cutting paper waste in the work place.

And sure enough, the Mayor has scrapped The Londoner newspaper freesheet, which be believes will save him £2.9 million, a third of which will be going in to putting the trees into areas deemed most in need.

We are lucky in Barnet to have leafy suburbs, but even some areas here would bloom from increased greenery to improve the look of high streets, as well as bringing the environmental benefits.

In his proposals, Boris indicated that a tree-lined street has only 10-15% of the dust of a street without trees, as well as being 6-10 degrees celsius cooler.

But as the number of Green Party votes increased for many seats in the elections, there is clearly an incentive for elected authorities to act and perform on climate issues.

And with further proposals coming from City Hall relating to waste, recycling, and transport, time will tell if the tree initiative will actually branch out to other green successes for the capital.

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