Thousands of new trees planted

Thousands of new trees have been planted across Bridgend County Borough as part of an ongoing initiative to improve air quality, cut down on pollution, reduce soil erosion and help prevent flooding.

Bridgend County Borough Council is working with a wide number of partner organisations to create cleaner, greener communities throughout the area, and to identify locations where further trees can be planted in future.

To date, more than 4,330 trees have been planted in areas such as Sker, Kenfig, Caerau, Pyle, Heol y Cyw, Glanrhyd, Bryngarw, Porthcawl and land surrounding Bridgend Ford.

At Newbridge Fields, the council is working with Bridgend Town Council on finding space for more than 2,000 new trees, including a heritage orchard in association with Mental Health Matters Wales, and the authority has also partnered with Natural Resources Wales to plant trees designed to alleviate flooding issues as part of the Upper Garw Valley Habitat Scheme.

With more than a thousand trees planted in the last year alone and several thousand more still to come, Bridgend County Borough Council is committed towards working with partners across a number of initiatives which will all deliver further positive results for our local communities. We are also committed towards promoting responsible and robust woodland management in line with current best practice to ensure that trees can be maintained in good health and replaced where necessary.

Public awareness about the importance of maintaining and encouraging rural and urban trees is growing, and the council is keen to develop this further. We already have an above-average number of urban trees in the county borough, and want to maximise the long-term benefits of this by working with partners such as Natural Resources Wales to plant more, especially in our more heavily populated areas.

Research has confirmed that every year, trees throughout Bridgend County Borough remove an estimated 2,400 tonnes of carbon and 54 tonnes of pollution from the atmosphere, intercept an estimated 124 million litres of water, and provide ecosystem services worth more than £650,000. With clear benefits to be gained from increasing the number of trees in the county borough and maintaining our on-going woodland management activities, the council and its partners have set aside resources to identify further locations, and are developing a costed programme of works that will help support this. I’m looking forward to seeing these plans take shape, and hope that more details can be revealed very soon.”

Councillor Richard Young, Cabinet Member for Communities