Thread by @EdinburghSSC

Another quick #GeorgeStreetTrees thread...

Edinburgh is rightly proud of its green credentials, with more trees per head than any other UK city & regularly winning 'greenest' accolades. But there's one league table where it languishes at the bottom, and that's street trees.

Edinburgh has only ~8,500 street trees (a 22% decline since the 1990s) & barely 1% of its urban tree total. Similarly-sized Sheffield has ~36,000.

CEC recognises this & has prioritised street tree planting, yet there are still no trees in the current George Street redesign.

Historical perspective:

Systematic street tree planting in UK cities began in the 1860s, but Edinburgh's early progress was painfully slow & largely driven by the Cockburn Association, which encouraged the Council to plant more streets with trees with only limited success.

In 1897, the Cockburn Association argued that "there are few of our leading thoroughfares which do not contain ample space for trees, and they would add greatly to the amenity of the City" & "Few improvements would do so much for the City at so little cost."

A tree-lined George Street in particular was long an aspiration for the Cockburn Association, and their 1902 annual report "welcomes enthusiastically the news that George Street would at last be planted with trees".

It was not to be and over a century later, in a cruel irony, it is the current Cockburn Association which now stand as one of the principal barriers to making that dream a reality.

If you want to see trees then give your view here:
consultationhub.edinburgh.gov.uk/bi/d76708f1/

#GeorgeStreetTrees