Authority ‘wasted cash’ on tree planting

A COUNCIL has been accused of wasting taxpayer money after more than a hundred trees planted to tackle climate change died just months after being put into the ground.

Space at the edge of King’s Lynn in Norfolk was supposed to be a carbon sink of 6,000 trees to tackle climate change, but many were planted at the wrong time of year and their planting destroyed carbon-negative grass.

Environmentalists have said that the trees were planted so shallowly that they were unlikely to take root, while the grassland they were planted on was already carbon-negative but had now been almost destroyed by the planting. As the seedlings were planted in April rather than winter or early spring, they did not have a good chance of survival.

Climate campaigners have criticised the scheme for simply aiming to be “seen to be doing something” rather than making a valid difference, as well as for wasting public money.

Dr Charlie Gardner, a conservation scientist and local climate activist, told Vice News that “councils don’t have a lot of money”, adding that “there was a lot of good that could have been done with that money”.

A spokesman from the Borough Council of King’s Lynn and West Norfolk said: “Our most recent review has identified that between 15-20 per cent of the trees planted have succumbed to what we can only refer to as wanton vandalism”, adding that this could be seen from broken sticks and supporting plastic tubes on the ground.