Capital grants starting at £10,000 are available to support the planting and establishment of standard trees and street trees in urban and peri-urban areas (between urban and rural areas) in England.
The Urban Tree Challenge Fund (UTCF) has reopened in England to applications for a final funding round. The Fund provides capital funding to plant and establish trees that are an appropriate size for the urban setting in which they are planted. This can range from a several trees to line a street to a small community woodland. Planting should take place in urban and peri-urban areas of England.
An urban area, for the purposes of the UTCF, is a built-up area (based on Office of National Statistics data) with a population of at least 2,000 people and a buffer of 1km to account for peri-urban planting (a peri-urban area is normally considered to be a zone of transition from rural to urban land located between the outer limits of urban and regional centres and the rural environment).
The Urban Tree Challenge Fund supports planting of large ‘standard’ trees and street trees – making an immediate impact to communities and ensuring other organisations who provide planting for smaller trees can continue to do so. This round of the Fund aims to level-up access to nature across the country, planting trees in socially deprived urban areas with low canopy cover, in proximity to healthcare and educational facilities. Grants will support the planting of trees and the first 3 years of their care to ensure they can flourish into the future.
Applicants must have full management control over the land or signed consent from those with management control over the land. Agents are also able to apply on behalf of an organisation or landowner.
UTCF supports both block bids and individual applications. A block bid is designed for organisations to apply for funding for multiple projects that can be geographically dispersed or focused in one area but submitted under one application.
The guideline for block bids is a minimum UTCF funding requirement of £125,000. Individual applications are for smaller, focused areas of planting undertaken by small organisations or community groups. These individual applications will need a minimum UTCF funding requirement of £10,000, up to a maximum of £30,000.
The UTCF provides 80% of standard costs for planting large trees and their establishment costs for 3 years following planting. Applicants therefore need to a 20% matched funding contribution.
Prior to applying, eligible organisations should register with the Rural Payments Service and secure a Single Business Identifier (SBI) reference number.
Further information and guidance about how to apply to the Urban Tree Challenge Fund is available on the GOV.UK website.
Please note that B&NES has an online tool to help plan where woodlands might be planted in the district.