Forestry England will carry out a consultation later this year to seek the public’s feedback on plans for the site. The new woodland is part of Highways England’s commitment to increase biodiversity along England’s Strategic Road Network by 2050, and will go ahead regardless of consent being granted for the Lower Thames Crossing. Highways England has today (Wednesday 2 June) announced a new woodland the size of 135 football pitches will be planted in partnership with Forestry England, alongside the route of the proposed Lower Thames Crossing. Mike Seddon, Chief Executive of Forestry England said: “We know how important high-quality, local greenspace is to people as well as the country’s ambition to plant new woods and forests.
More trees are to be planted at Thames Chase.
- Credit: Thames Chase Trust
Woodland in Havering, Barking and Dagenham and parts of Essex is to benefit from £12.1million towards 500 hectares of new trees by March 2021.
In the next three months, Thames Chase Community Forest will be one of the 10 of the community forests across the country planting trees, in a push to help deliver the government s commitment to increase tree planting to 30,000 hectares per year, across the UK, by 2025 alongside peatland restoration and nature recovery.
In total, the trees to be planted across winter 2020 and into 2021 will eventually store more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and will also help in making local landscapes more resilient to the impacts of climate change.