London

Success Story

The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has made huge strides in increasing and protecting the city’s green spaces and in his first term, securing London’s status as the world’s first National Park City. Protecting, managing and increasing London’s trees and woodlands is at the heart of the Mayor’s plans for a green recovery, creating a healthier, more resilient city where everyone has access to a green space and wildlife can thrive. This includes working toward his ambitious manifesto pledge that no Londoner should be more than 10 minutes away from a green space. Since becoming Mayor in 2016 he has supported the planting of over 340,000 new trees, including two new large-scale woodlands in the Green Belt and nearly 10,000 street trees.

The London Environment Strategy sets ambitious targets for greening the city, including increasing existing tree canopy cover by ten per cent and restoring priority habitats including species-rich woodland. The planning and development strategy for Greater London – The London Plan – requires the city’s ‘urban forest’ of around 8 million trees to be protected and maintained, and new trees and woodlands planted in appropriate locations in order to enhance London’s urban forest. A partnership of 25 organisations are working with the Mayor on how this will be delivered through a London Urban Forest Plan.