Roads: Tree Planting

(asked on 1st September 2020) - View Source

Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what species of tree are in the Highways England recommended tree planting strategy alongside (a) motorways and (b) A-roads.


Answered by
Rachel Maclean Portrait
Rachel Maclean
This question was answered on 9th September 2020

Highways England’s standard for landscape design requires the character of the landscape around roads to be considered when specifying species for tree planting schemes. Projects on motorways and A-roads should therefore use local species of trees if possible and appropriate for that location. In practice, predominantly native and locally indigenous species are planted within the highway such as Hawthorn, Birch, Crab apple and Field Maple. Motorway interchanges and larger expanses may have space for bigger trees such as Oak or Beech. Occasionally, the need to support local habitats/species, or to protect local genetic diversity, may require trees to be grown from seeds from a specific location (accounting for “local provenance”). Highways England has a specification for such special provenance requirements.

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