England announces £79m for community trees and nature recovery

England’s environment secretary, Angela Eagle, announced £79 million on 30 September 2026 for community tree planting and nature recovery across England. The government says £53 million will support up to 500,000 trees outside woodlands between April 2027 and March 2030, while £26 million will support local plans to restore nature and adapt to climate change. The tree figure is a target for future planting, rather than a count of trees already planted under the new fund.

The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) says the Community Trees Fund will cover planting on streets, in parks and across rural landscapes. It is aimed at projects outside the government’s larger woodland creation offers, so its target concerns a specific kind of planting rather than all trees planted in England. The announcement places everyday spaces close to homes and workplaces alongside rural sites in the proposed programme.

Who can seek Community Trees Fund support

Defra says strategic authorities and local councils will be able to receive funding, as will other organisations including environmental charities, farm clusters and National Park Authorities. The fund is intended to support urban, peri-urban and rural projects. That gives local bodies a potential role in choosing and carrying out planting, although Defra has yet to publish the detailed rules that applicants would need to plan a bid.

The department says further details will follow. Its announcement does not give an application timetable, individual award sizes or a list of project locations. Nor does the commitment to plant up to 500,000 trees establish that the maximum will be reached. Those distinctions matter for communities considering a project: the funding period is specified, but the route to an award and the eventual distribution of trees are still to be set out.

How the £26m nature recovery allocation works

These strategies identify local priorities for environmental improvement. According to Defra, 48 local authorities develop and publish them with communities, farmers, businesses, planners, land managers and environmental groups, and they now cover almost all of England. Defra gives restoring wetlands to reduce flood risk, planting trees to cool streets and adding vegetation along rivers to improve water quality as examples of the work local plans can guide.

The government says the strategies are also intended to contribute to its commitment to conserve and manage at least 30% of land for nature by 2030. That is a stated policy aim, rather than a measured result of the £26 million allocation. The immediate change is funding for authorities to deliver locally agreed priorities; the announcement does not establish how much land the allocation will ultimately help protect.

Why the government is backing trees and wetlands

Defra presents the package as a way to help communities deal with heatwaves and flooding. It says street trees can reduce city air temperatures by as much as 4°C and that a mature tree can intercept more than 15,000 litres of rainwater in a year. Those are general claims about what trees can do, not results measured from this newly announced fund. The benefits of any particular planting project will depend on what is planted and where.

The Guardian reported a favourable response from conservation groups. Craig Bennett, chief executive of the Wildlife Trusts, called the plans ‘very encouraging’ and said councils had long lacked the power, money or political support to help nature. Richard Benwell, chief executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, told the newspaper that investment guided by locally agreed restoration plans made economic and ecological sense, while calling for nature investment to be increased further.

The Guardian also reported Bennett’s call for support for farmers, after a £253 million Sustainable Farming Incentive application pot opened the previous Tuesday and was exhausted within six hours. That episode concerns a separate scheme, but it shows why the availability of support matters to groups asked to deliver environmental work. Defra lists farm clusters among potential recipients of the new tree fund; it has not yet published the fund’s detailed application arrangements.

How the target fits England’s planting record

The new target should be read alongside, rather than added directly to, broader planting figures. Full Fact’s September tracker, drawing on Forestry Commission data, reported approximately 7.8 million trees planted in England in 2025/26, compared with 10.4 million in 2024/25 and 7.1 million in 2023/24. Its account distinguishes woodland from trees outside woodland. Defra’s new target applies specifically to the latter category and runs over three future financial years.

A separate regional programme offers context for what longer-term planting efforts have recorded. The Woodland Trust reported in September that Liverpool John Moores University analysis found more than 13 million trees had been planted in the Northern Forest since 2018. That programme aims for at least 50 million trees over 25 years. The trust said more than 738,000 northern households had a Northern Forest wooded site within a 15-minute walk, including about one-third from low-income communities. Those findings describe the Northern Forest; they are not forecasts for the new Community Trees Fund.

For the newly announced package, the next practical step is publication of the Community Trees Fund’s detailed terms. Defra has set out the total tree funding, the April 2027 to March 2030 period and the types of organisation that may take part. Until locations, awards and an application process are published, the number of trees delivered and the communities that receive them remain open questions.