Thousands of new trees are to be planted across Cardiff in a bid to improve the city's air quality. The trees will be planted at more than 150 locations across the capital over the next six months including residential streets, schools, parks, and other green spaces.
They will form part of Cardiff Council's Coed Caerdydd project, a 10-year programme which aims to increase tree canopy cover in the city from 18.9% to 25 % and support its One Planet climate change strategy. Get the latest news from across Cardiff sent straight to your inbox for free by signing up to our newsletter.
An army of volunteers is expected to help plant the trees at more than 60 community tree-planting events across Cardiff with the first taking place in Adamsdown on November 7. The majority of the planting locations have been suggested by members of the public and community groups as well as local councillors.
Native species such as oak, birch, rowan, and alder trees will all be planted as will some ornamental trees selected for their ability to withstand the impacts of climate change. The trees will range in size from small saplings to larger trees while fruiting trees, including apple, pear, plum and cherry, will also be planted at a number of suitable sites.
Every year Cardiff's trees remove around 10.5% of all pollutants emitted by traffic in the city including 7,900 tonnes of carbon, which is the same as the annual emissions from 14,000 cars. As well as supporting thousands of species of wildlife they also take up to 356m litres of rainfall every year, helping to reduce water treatment costs and the risk of flooding.
Cabinet member for culture, parks, and events, Cllr Jennifer Burke-Davies, said she was hoping for another successful planting season with volunteers helping to plant 20,000 trees last time around. She has now set her sights on planting even more than that, encouraging Cardiff residents to sign up for the community planting events.
"In the last planting season our amazing Coed Caerdydd volunteers donated more than 1,800 hours of their time to help get the first planting season of our urban forest project off to a great start, planting a grand total of 20,000 trees – an area about the size of 15 football pitches," she said. "This season we're looking to plant even more trees than we did during the last but we can't do that alone and I'd encourage anybody with an interest in helping make our air cleaner and our city greener to sign up to one of our community planting events."
There are currently 66 planting events planned across Cardiff between November and March 2023. You can find more information about these events here.
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