Future Woodlands Scotland’s Urban Forestry Programme (UFP) is being developed to address the need for more trees and greenspaces in Scotland’s urban areas, and to help improve the health and wellbeing of residents, and the urban environment. 

The UFP is supported by bp, as part of its planned Scottish offshore windfarm project, Morven, jointly developed with EnBW. As the UFP’s lead funder, bp has committed up to £10 million over the next decade.

The Urban Forestry Programme uses targets derived from urban forester Cecil Konijnendijk's 3-30-300 rule of thumb. This has received widespread attention as an evidence-based target for improving human health and wellbeing, as well as climate resilience.

The 3-30-300 target is that everyone:

• can see 3 trees of a decent size from their home
• has a minimum of 30% canopy cover in their neighbourhood        
• lives within 300 metres of high quality urban greenspace of at least 1 hectare - roughly the size of a rugby pitch

Future Woodland Scotland cite a Forest Research calculation of Scotland's urban tree canopy as only 15.7%. A greenspace scotland estimate from analysis of Scottish Househould Survey data is that in 2022, around 30% of adults felt that they did not live within 300 metres of any public greenspace, rising to 39% in large urban areas. So there is a long way to go to reach a 3-30-300 urban greenspace target.

The Urban Forestry Programme will prioritise urban areas in Scotland with fewest trees - generally the least advantaged areas - using data from the Woodland Trust supported Tree Equity Score tool.

Two pilot projects in the Urban Forestry Programme were announced in July. The first is a fruit and nut tree projects in Raploch and Bannockburn, led by a local environmental organisation TreeLink Stirling. The second project is a tree warden scheme, intended to maintain 10,000 urban trees already planted across the Glasgow City Region as part of the Clyde Climate Forest. (You can donate to Clyde Climate Forest through MyParkScotland here )

Several funding opportunities will be available through the UFP, with grants ranging from £2,000 to £100,000. The charity is also keen to explore opportunities with organisations to address challenges and obstacles to increasing tree canopy cover in Scotland’s towns and cities.

As well as local projects, FWS plans to work on how to ensure there are enough people in place with the right skills to sustain more urban trees over the long term.

Des Hackett, Future Woodlands Scotland's Urban Forest Fund manager explains:

"We are still establishing the longer term issues. Extending tree cover on this scale needs to be about changing the way we do things. It’s about getting urban tree planting integral to thinking about the vital services needed to manage cities and urban space – in the same way we routinely think about maintenance and development for roads, sewers, power supply, street lighting and so on.

It will need enhanced inter-service ways of working amongst Councils’ staff and other public and private sector infrastructure professionals, as well as with local communities and their organisations."

Applications for the Urban Forestry Programme open on 30 September 2024. There is more information about the grant programme here.