Northern Forest Manifesto | 1 A new Northern Forest Northern Forest Manifesto | 3 Contents Panta Rhei – everything flows 4 As beauty meets prosperity 6 Breathe, you’ve gone green 12 Cooling the canopy 20 Resourcing the future 28 It’s in your nature 34 Our Northern Forest, our legacy 38 Where should we plant our 50 million trees? 40 Footnotes 44 Northern Forest Manifesto | 5 environment than we inherited from our is unfiltered. Our timber mills look forward to forebears. We want to see habitats thrive, an uncertain supply. Local communities don’t planting rates soar, a woodland culture flourish have the access to green space that can be so Panta Rhei - and our ancient woodlands better protected. transformative. The song bird has nowhere to land. Ours is a demand, a promise and a proposition; The government’s own figures put our existing for a rich and silvan future. The impact will be on woodland resource as being worth £1.8 billion4 to everything flows the streets of our cities, around new developments us in terms of social, environmental and economic and old, across key areas of our uplands, and benefits. The estimate is that for every 250,000 along our riversides. This will happen in our of new hectares planted, £500 million of social Let’s plant a thought. We live in a time when gardens and across our neighbourhoods. benefits are generated each and every year.5 it seems as if almost anything could happen. The Northern Forest is an idea that fits this And then there are the benefits you can’t put moment in time perfectly. As a recent parliamentary a price on. A woodland walk with someone you Technology, ecosystems, politics, economies, enquiry1 rightly pointed out, planting rates love. A child climbing up their first tree. A riot have virtually stalled in this country, even as we of autumn colour that reminds you, yet again, our everyday habits; change is ubiquitous. Some struggle to try and raise our levels of woodland how much you like the season after summer. cover to a fraction of those enjoyed elsewhere. change is positive, some less so. Mutability is something we are learning to live and work with. 25 years Life is flux, as Heraclitus famously put it. The Northern Forest It is at times of shift and turbulence of carbon; and of course, make the covers an area of 13 that the boldest of thinking and citizens of our great Northern cities 50m trees million people and action is needed. If your desire is and regions happier, and healthier. 7.6% woodland cover to help shape a stronger and more - well below Europe’s resilient future as the jet stream of Our rise is unstoppable, our logic is average. Our plan history propels us all forward, then fierce. Across the pages that follow we Across England, only 10% of our land area is Our Northern Forest is a plan to plant 50 million to plant 50 million the challenge is to think across set out our prospectus. We start with covered by woodland.2 In Scotland that stands at trees in and around our great cities of Liverpool, trees will transform the horizon and to connect causes, a clear case for a major economic 18%, and in France, Germany and Spain it is 31%, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull. It is an this landscape effects and powerful solutions. uplift from increased property 33% and 37% respectively.3 England’s woodland area of 13 million people and has woodland cover to make it more values and regional attractiveness. cover is only just over a quarter of that enjoyed, on even lower than the paltry England average at resilient, beautiful That’s where the Northern Forest We then move through reduced average, across the rest of Europe. Our planting just 7.6%. There are 650,0006 new homes planned, and prosperous. has emerged from, as an urgent idea carbon emissions, greater ecological level for new trees in the year 2015-16 stood at £75 billion7 of infrastructure in the pipeline and of our time, addressing the challenges resilience – including from flooding just 700 hectares; some argue that if you look at there are new powers being exercised due to of today and tomorrow, deploying a – the need for more timber and the amount of trees being removed in cities like changes in planning powers across the region. natural solution that’s much, much timber planting, benefits for health Sheffield for example, we are in truth seeing a older than we are but that has the and air quality, and the biodiversity net decline in our woodland cover at the moment, We have a plan to transform this landscape most contemporary relevance. boost to be expected. And finally we while policy and common sense alike says we to make it more resilient, even more beautiful turn to the practicalities of getting should be headed in the opposite direction. and more prosperous too. There is an evidence We want to plant 50 million trees, 50 million trees into the ground. base, a strong partnership and a vision we across a generation and across This means the benefits that accrue from trees can follow. For people, nature and for the the North of England. We know Inspired by the work of our are simply slipping away from us. When the hard economy, we will plant 50 million trees and where they can go and how it can be community forests across rains fall, they land on even harder surfaces and hope for a future we can all be proud of. achieved. If trees are planted in the England and the Tree Charter, our run off swiftly to create flood risks downstream. right place, we know that we can: partnership is driven by the desire When the heat rises through climate change, Join us. reduce the risk of flooding for up to to make sure that our children, we don’t have the shade or the evaporative 190,000 people; create thousands of and their children, enjoy a better power of leaves to keep us cool. Our dirty air new jobs; store thousands of tonnes and more equitable natural Northern Forest Manifesto | 7 There are two ways in which trees and woodlands impact on our economy. One is through the direct services they deliver: cleaning and cooling the air, slowing the flow of floodwaters, and producing food or timber. The second way is perhaps even more powerful; it’s the way they transform how we feel about ourselves and the places where we live. As beauty This is a true story. A few years back its favour; the MD’s partner however there was a roundtable discussion for had their mind made up, and it was a leading business magazine featuring the quality of the city’s environmental property agents in one of our great assets that made all the difference. Northern cities. A senior director from The deal was done. a major property agent shared a tale of one successful deal they had managed Our environment, and trees in meets to swing. They had been commissioned particular, has a dramatic and positive by a firm looking to relocate thousands impact on our economy.1 Trees create of jobs out of London and were attractive environments for business For the North prospecting Grade A office space investment and development, they across a selection of cities in the bolster our urban and rural identities, to prosper North and the Midlands. they have a direct influence on property values and of course, they we need to While the Managing Director of this create the spaces and places that we plant trees prosperity firm was being shown some of the best all want to visit, relocate to or work in. floor plates on offer in this particular and look after city, the MD’s partner, who had come The fact is that if we want to see those we along on the trip, was being shown greater prosperity across the North, it green spaces — in this case National has to be green. We need to plant trees already have. Trust estates circling the city. When and protect those we already have. it came to the crunch, the MD had Trees set the scene for growth, and a favourable impression of the city the symbolism of this contribution is Setting the scene for growth but not enough to tip the decision in worth exploring. As beauty meets prosperity Northern Forest Manifesto | 9 Adding value, And for house prices and housing community woodland and nearly improvements increased occupancy market renewal, trees are critical 600 new homes built. The District from 40% to 78%; levered in more with trees too. Right across the world the Valuer found property values in than £1m of private investment; and evidence shows that being adjacent the surrounding area had risen by attracted 28 new businesses and For major development schemes, to woodland and having street trees £15m as a direct result, and new more than 60 new jobs.8 Another increasingly enlightened developers as part of a development can and developments worth £75m had been study, for The Mersey Forest, are recognising that green space does enhance the attractiveness attracted — a significant return on showed landscaping improvements and better public spaces and and value of properties. Closely investment. Another study based in in Portland Basin, Tameside amenities are critical in ensuring associated with an uplift in North West England showed that a and Winsford, Cheshire yielded that their projects are successful monetary value are the values held view of a natural landscape added respectively over 16% and 13% and fully let.