People in Norwich's Connaught Road are highlighting their feelings over dying trees by decorating them.
To protest to Norfolk County Council about what has happened, neighbours congregated to decorate the dead street trees with ribbons, leaves, flowers, and messages to officials.
They hoped it would highlight what they believe are the council’s failure to provide adequate resources for planting new highways, trees, and their maintenance.
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Julie Young, Green Party city councillor for Nelson ward said: "Nelson ward’s tree canopy cover is 13.6% which is far lower than the minimum 20% standard for inland towns and cities recommended by Forest Research, part of the Forestry Commission.
“Norwich has an overall tree canopy coverage of 18.6%, with nine of the city’s thirteen electoral wards below 20%.
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“Green Party councillors want Norwich City Council to set a long-term target for increasing the city’s tree canopy cover to at least 25% and planting more street trees and maintaining them is essential for achieving this goal.”
In 2022/23, the county budget allocation for purchasing highways trees for the whole of Norwich was £20,000 which paid for 49 trees.
A citizen survey of street trees in Nelson ward last year found 75 dead or missing street trees and further trees have since died from the heatwaves and drought.
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A Norfolk County Council spokeswoman said: “Streets such as Connaught Road can be a challenging environment for trees to thrive, especially after long spells of hot dry weather such as those we have experienced last year and this.
“We follow industry guidance with watering young trees to maximise chances of them establishing successfully, but unfortunately some trees do die.
"We try to replace those that don’t survive when we can. We have made an application to the Local Authority Tree Fund this year, together with other local councils, to increase tree planting across the county, including in Connaught Road.”
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