Marston Vale community forest near Bedford to plant trees as part of Government's £12.1million campaign

Over the next four months the Forest of Marston Vale will be planting trees in a push to help deliver the Government’s UK-wide target of 30,000 hectares of trees planted annually by 2025.

Nationally, an initial £12.1million of grant funding for the first planting season in 2020/21 has been secured from the Government’s Nature for Climate fund.

As well as funding the tree planting, the grant will enable each community forest - including Marston Vale - to manage all aspects of creating the new woodland, and engage with communities and landowners to deliver opportunities to get more trees in the ground.

The funding - which is part of The Trees for Climate programme - will also create new jobs and secure existing ones within the forestry and environmental sectors.

The trees to be planted across winter 2020/21 will eventually store more than 100,000 tonnes of carbon, playing an important role in helping the UK hit its target of net zero by 2050.

In Bedfordshire, the Trees for Climate programme will feature planting at two new sites close to Houghton House, in Ampthill, with 16 hectares due to be planted with native trees and shrubs before the end of March 2021.

The larger site, bought in partnership with the Woodland Trust, has been designed with community input and, in total, will have around 38 hectares planted by the Forest of Marston Vale Trust over three years.

A new community engagement programme will include a further two hectares planted with schools between January and March.