Deadline: 30-Jun-23
The Forestry Commission has announced the applications for Urban Tree Challenge Fund to support the planting and establishment of standard trees in urban and peri-urban areas in England.
Funding Information
- The fund provides 80% of published standard costs for the planting and establishment of trees in urban and peri-urban areas. In 2023 payments for trial pits have been introduced to check for the presence of services. The remaining costs of planting and establishing trees supported under the UTCF must be met through match funding, either in the form of money or labour. Agreement holders can complete tree planting over two planting seasons: winter 2023/2024 and winter 2024/25. There is a minimum application value of £10,000.
- Establishment payments support the cost of weeding, watering and checking trees during multiple visits over a 3-year period.
Eligible Land
Land included in a UTCF application must fall within an urban area. An urban area, as defined for the purposes of the UTCF, is a built-up area (based on Office of National Statistics data) with a population of at least 2,000 people, and a buffer of 1km to account for peri-urban planting.
What the grant cannot pay for?
UTCF cannot be used to pay for the cost of any of the following, which will not be considered Eligible Expenditure:
- Any capital works (tree planting) initiated before the Agreement Commencement Date
- Planning application fees or other transactional fees
- Meeting legal requirements, including planning conditions
- Planting of replacement trees
Eligibility Criteria
- Anyone can apply for the Urban Tree Challenge Fund (UTCF), if you either have full management control over the land or signed consent from those with management control over the land for the duration of the Agreement. Agents are also able to apply on behalf of an organisation or landowner. Any individual or organisation can submit one application to UTCF in a single financial year. Multiple applications from the same applicant will be ranked and scored independently from one another.
- Where the applicant does not have full management control over the land in the application (for example, the applicant is a tenant, trustee, joint owner or representative of a group of adjoining owners), they will require written permission from all parties with management control over the land before an agreement can be issued. This should come in the form of countersignatures on the application form.
- Land submitted in an UTCF application does not need to be registered on the Rural Land Register, but applicants will need to register with Rural Payments to obtain a Single Business Identifier (SBI) and a Customer Reference Number (CRN).
For more information, visit Forestry Commission.