Agenda item

Participation in a Trees Outside Woods (TOWs) joint project bid to Heritage Lottery Fund

Report of the Director of Open Spaces and Heritage.

 

Minutes:

Members noted that the national trees and woodlands protection charity, the Woodland Trust (WT), is developing a Trees Outside Woods (TOWs) Project across England & Wales for a Stage 1 bid to the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) and other funders during 2018.

 

For this “umbrella? bid WT is currently seeking 10 to 15 local partnership schemes that it would incorporate into this overall project. These partnership schemes would help TOWs achieve the aims of increasing the canopy cover of trees outside woods, thereby enhancing the biodiversity and landscape of towns and countryside and providing greener accessible corridors for people across England & Wales. These

aims match those of the Green Arc partnership, which the City of London Corporation (CoL) has strongly supported for 15 years, and would also fit the remit of the OneEppingForestLocal Strategic Partnership (LSP) Green Taskforce workstrand of which the City Corporation is a board member.

 

An Expression of Interest has been made to WT by the Local Strategic Partnership,

OneEppingForest, for a joint local scheme in the Epping Forest Green Arc area to be considered for inclusion as part of the larger TOWs project. This report, therefore, requests permission for your officers to work with partner organisations from OneEppingForestand Green Arc, with the aim of compiling a project proposal. The project details would need to be worked up during 2018 for submission under a WT?s TOWs Stage 1 bid (or bids) – provisionally targeted for the end of 2018. The project proposal would seek to enhance the natural environment of the Green Arc around Epping Forest. The details of the proposal would be reported to Grand Committee for scrutiny before the Stage 1 bid submission.

 

RESOLVED – that Members approve the joint development, with OneEppingForest and other partners, of a draft project proposal under the Trees Outside Woods umbrella project, for inclusion in WT?s Stage 1 bid(s) to the Heritage Lottery Fund, subject to the draft proposal being submitted to Grand Committee for scrutiny prior to any final agreement on submission of a project bid.

Supporting documents: