Many of England’s ancient woodlands, forests, trees and hedgerows have been destroyed over the past few hundred years. Just 10% of England is covered in woodland, compared to an EU average of 38%. Even including other trees like street trees and lone trees, English tree cover is still only 12.8%.
While many communities are fighting to protect and expand our woodland, we recognise that it’s hard to find land for more trees if you’re not armed with data and a proper plan.
Friends of the Earth has teamed up with mapping experts Terra Sulis to identify existing tree cover and draw up an "opportunity map" of areas in England that may be suitable for creating woodlands.
The map shows existing tree cover shaded in green, opportunity areas for creating new woodland shaded in yellow, and opportunity areas for rewilding shaded in orange. It can display local authority and neighbourhood boundaries. Neighbourhoods are defined as Lower Layer Super Output Areas (LSOAs), which are small areas identified by the Office of National Statistics and have an average population of 1,700 people.
For each local authority area, the map displays:
- existing tree canopy cover as a percentage of the total area,
- the area’s ranking for tree cover when compared with other similar local authorities, ie predominantly urban or predominantly rural,
- the proportion of neighbourhoods in the area that are in the top 10% of most deprived neighbourhoods nationally, as an indicator of income, and
- the amount of new woodland opportunity in hectares and as a percentage, and what amount of that could be achieved through rewilding.
For each neighbourhood area, the map displays:
- existing tree canopy cover as a percentage of the total area,
- the area’s ranking for tree cover when compared with other similar neighbourhoods, ie urban or rural, and
- the neighbourhood’s income decile as ranked by the Index of Multiple Deprivation (IMD), where 1 is the lowest income decile.
Key findings
Existing tree cover
Many areas are deprived of trees and should be prioritised in tree-planting efforts. Our research shows:
- Tree cover across England is 12.8%, of which 10% is woodland.
- 43% of neighbourhoods have less than 10% tree cover, and 84% have less than 20%.
- South Holland in Lincolnshire has the lowest tree cover at 2.2%, whereas Surrey Heath in Surrey has the highest at 36.1%.
- Lower income neighbourhoods have much less tree cover than wealthier ones, especially in rural areas.
Woodland opportunity
It’d be possible to almost double woodland cover in England without encroaching on high-value arable farmland, Priority Habitats, peat bogs or protected nature sites. Our research shows there’s potential to:
- at least triple woodland cover in 34 local authority areas.
- at least double woodland cover in 63 local authority areas.
- increase woodland cover by at least 50% in 112 local authority areas.
- increase woodland cover by at least 25% in 160 local authority areas.
Due to data limitations, the map doesn't identify the potential for new trees in urban areas. Including these would highlight significantly more opportunities to grow trees in England.
We'd love to hear how you're using this resource and any issues you've spotted with the data set.
Contact usTop opportunity areas for new woodland creation
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| Rank | Local authority | Woodland opportunity (1000 hectares) |
Woodland opportunity (proportion of area) |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Northumberland | 77 | 15% | |
| 2 | Cornwall | 73 | 21% | |
| 3 | Shropshire | 47 | 15% | |
| 4 | Eden District | 43 | 20% | |
| 5 | South Lakeland District | 39 | 26% | |
| 6 | Craven District | 39 | 33% | |
| 7 | County Durham | 38 | 17% | |
| 8 | North Devon District | 35 | 32% | |
| 9 | Dorset | 35 | 14% | |
| 10 | Derbyshire Dales District | 33 | 42% | |
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To find out about your local authority area, download the full data set. |
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Methodology
Existing tree cover was mapped using Environment Agency data and newly available laser LiDAR imaging of England. The analysis can identify lone trees and street trees as well as groups of trees and woodlands. Find out more about the methodology for mapping tree cover.
Woodland opportunity was mapped using national datasets from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra). For more information, please see this in-depth report on woodland opportunity mapping.
To assess the suitability of sites for woodland creation, it’s vital to undertake an ecological survey at a local level, and this map’s data should be supplemented with local datasets, including Local Wildlife Sites, County Wildlife Sites and Local Environmental Records Centres data on priority habitats. Important archaeological sites also need to be excluded, which may need to be done on a case-by-case basis.
Due to data limitations, the map doesn't identify the potential for new trees in urban areas – such as street trees, public parks and gardens – so don’t worry if "future opportunity" in your area is low. Including these would highlight significantly more opportunities to grow trees in England. And some high-value agricultural land that’s not recorded as opportunity woodland could also incorporate trees, for example through agroforestry.
Inspired by trees?
Exclusions from map
We excluded the following areas from woodland opportunity in the map:
- Water bodies, urban areas and existing woodland.
- Designated wildlife and conservation sites (like Sites of Special Scientific Interest), Priority Habitats, and semi-improved grasslands to protect nature.
- The highest quality agricultural land (known as Grade 1 and 2) – we need this land to grow crops.
- The poorest quality agricultural land (Grade 5), almost all of which is carbon-storing peat bogs. Planting trees on these would release more carbon than the trees would soak up. We're asking the government to give our peat bogs better protection.
- A portion of Grade 4 land. Grade 4 is poor quality agricultural land mostly used for pasture and is suitable for tree planting (particularly if we reduce meat consumption), but some of this land is used for crop growing.
- Grade 3 is split into 3a and 3b, with 3a the better quality. Some of 3b is used for crop growing and some is used for pasture. We excluded all of Grade 3a land and the areas of 3b that are used for crop growing.
What we were left with after this process was most of Grade 4 agricultural land and much of Grade 3b agricultural land. We also excluded more of the Grade 3b land, specifically if the land had been used as pasture for some years. Some of this land could be important for wildlife and flowers (much of it might not be).
Land that’s good for plants and insects should be properly identified and designated as a protected site, but sadly not all of it is. We’ve been very cautious, but due to limitations in official data we can’t be exhaustive in our research on potentially sensitive sites, so each potential site must be thoroughly investigated.
