Trees and Planning – Tools for Planners and Design Teams

Planning has a critical role in ensuring that trees are both protected and that new trees are added to developments, whether through new developments or the regeneration of existing urban areas, to achieve maximum benefits for people, nature and place.

This seminar will explore the various tools that can help both planners and design teams to deliver the maximum benefits from trees and green infrastructure by examining some of the following issues:

• Why all local authorities need evidence-based, adopted tree strategies/urban forest strategies or masterplans.
• What tools are available to both design teams and planning authorities.
• What is the 3-30-300 rule or principle and what does it mean in practice?
• How to deliver tree value. – The benefits of canopy cover and how to determine what is needed locally.
• How to achieve green infrastructure equity.

Chair
Claire Stafford – Planning and Policy Advisor, Royal Town Planning Institute

Presentations

What Makes a Successful Local Tree Strategy that Delivers? The Process for the Cambridge Urban Forest Strategy (2026-2036)

Matthew Magrath – Urban Forestry Manager, Cambridge City Council

Tools for Planners:

• 3-30-300 Principle in Practice
  John Rose MICFor – Urban Forest Consultant, Treeconomics
• Tree Value Visions Tool: A New Free-to-Use Tool for Councils and Communities
  Alison Dyke –Research Fellow, Stockholm Environment Institute, University of York
  Peter Wood – Associate Lecturer, Social Science and Global Studies, the Open University in Scotland
• Urban Tree Canopy Cover User Guide: Progress Report
  Nicola Brown – Senior Officer, Green Infrastructure, Natural England
• Assessment of Green Infrastructure Equity (AGIE Methodology): Plymouth Case Study
  Martha Crockatt – Researcher (Ecosystems & Biodiversity Programme), Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford

Knowledge Partners

Arboricultural Association, Institute of Chartered Foresters, Institute of Highway Engineers, Landscape Institute, Urban Design Group