Tree cover ambition

We aim to reach 15% tree cover across Cheshire and Merseyside by 2050, pushing beyond this figure if conditions allow. 30% tree cover is our long-term ambition, but this is a multi-generational collaborative endeavour. If it was achieved, it would just over double the current tree cover.

Tree cover across The Mersey Forest is at 13.7% in 2025, which is below the England cover of 14.9%.

Whilst 15% tree cover by 2050 might not sound that ambitious, we think that it is achievable based on our records of what we have delivered since the early 1990s. We have developed three tree cover scenarios for 2050 to demonstrate this – with high, medium and low levels of confidence – which achieve 14.6 to 15.2% tree cover. These reflect different factors that might influence our progress, such as funding, land availability, and national policy support. We have also developed three further scenarios to showcase what is needed to reach higher levels of ambition, with increased levels of local and national support and collaboration allowing us to go faster and further.

The scenarios for 2050 are:

• 14.6% tree cover – Our “high confidence” scenario assumes the establishment of 100 hectares per year, a figure that is roughly the average since we started recording in 1990.
• 14.9% tree cover – Our “medium confidence” scenario assumes the establishment of 140 hectares per year, a figure that has been achieved in around one in every three years since 1990.
• 15.2% tree cover – Our “low confidence” scenario assumes the establishment of 175 hectares per year, a figure that has been achieved in around one in every five years since 1990.
• 15.9% tree cover – Our “carbon budget” scenario assumes the establishment of 280 hectares per year, a figure that has only been achieved in three years since 1990. This figure doubles our medium confidence scenario, in line with the Climate Change Committee’s 7th carbon budget recommendations to the UK Government which requires tree planting to more than double by 2030.
• 16.5% tree cover – Our “national tree cover” scenario assumes the establishment of 354 hectares per year, a figure that has only been achieved once since 1990. This figure is in line with the England target of 16.5% tree cover by 2050, as set out in the UK Government’s Environmental Improvement Plan.
• 30% tree cover – Our “long-term ambition” scenario assumes the establishment of 1,951 hectares if it were to be achieved by 2050. This would only be achievable with significant societal shifts.

The Mersey Forest Delivery Plan sets out shorter term 5-year targets, allowing us to adapt to changing circumstances and ensure we continue to make progress towards our long-term ambition. 

30% tree cover is a long-term ambition, which we can progressively and collectively work towards over an extended timescale, possibly centuries. This is a multi-generational endeavour. It is not a target to be achieved in the shorter term without significant societal shifts.

Tree cover is made up of a mix of trees within and outside of woodlands. In 2025, tree cover in The Mersey Forest is 13.7%, which is below England’s cover of 14.9%. Woodland accounts for only 6.6% of The Mersey Forest, which is well below the figures of 10.3% for England and 13.5% for the UK. The UK is one of the least densely forested countries in Europe, with European and worldwide figures of 46% and 31% respectively.

The ambition for 30% tree cover was part of the concept for England’s Community Forests in the early 1990s. At this time there was a perception of land surplus, with widespread vacant and derelict land following deindustrialisation in the 1980s. Furthermore, farmers were being incentivised to take productive agricultural land out of use through practices such as ‘set-aside’. In this context, new woodland was seen as a productive use of ‘spare’ land.

Today, the idea of ‘spare’ land is no longer tenable. Many of the larger vacant and derelict land sites have already been transformed into new woodland, and land is under intense pressure, with housing needs and food security, as well as space for other habitats and nature recovery, high on the agenda. Despite these other pressures, more trees are still necessary. They play a crucial role in tackling pertinent issues such as the climate and nature crises, underpin local economies, and improve our health and wellbeing.

Our long-term tree cover ambition takes into account that there are some areas where new trees and woodlands will be inappropriate, for example due to landscape or ambitions for other habitat creation. This is set out in our “area-specific – Where principles“, which map how this longer-term 30% tree cover ambition could be distributed across our area. They guide what this longer-term ambition might look like, rather than being binding targets for each area. There are also places such as existing urban areas, where it may be very challenging to retrofit tree cover. That said, it is essential that trees are integrated into other land uses where this is possible. It does not have to be an ‘either/or’ situation when it comes to increasing tree cover. 

Trees can be integrated into and used to improve other land uses. Doing this will help to move us towards our aim for 15% tree cover by 2050, and our longer-term multi-generational ambition of 30% tree cover across Cheshire and Merseyside.

Trees help to create an attractive setting for new housing developments, providing a healthy and climate resilient environment for people to live in. 

Trees on farms can support the business and food security in the face of climate uncertainty. They can be incorporated in many ways, including hedgerow trees, shelterbelts, agroforestry schemes, orchards, and smaller blocks of woodland on less productive or marginal land. These trees can help offer shelter and shade for livestock, improve soil quality, help manage water flow and soil erosion, and attract pollinators and other wildlife. They can also be managed as a timber resource and to diversify income. 

England’s Community Forests have an agreed guide for farmers and landowners on working with them.

We are aiming to increase tree cover to 15% by 2050, with a long-term multi-generational ambition of 30%. However, in the journey to increase tree cover, there will be some gains and losses of individual trees and woodlands along the way. As a society, we need to develop a woodland culture, to allow us to manage this change as best we can.

Loss of trees or woodlands are always hard for people, especially for local communities who have developed relationships with them, and have grown to love and cherish them. This is especially difficult when they feel that this change is imposed on them, or when decisions have been made democratically which they do not agree with. Yet trees are part of a dynamic, complex, and ever-changing system, a landscape of which humans are a part. In England, humans have historically been responsible for clearing vast areas of trees and woodlands, for settlements, agriculture, and for various uses of timber. We are now nationally on a path to increase our tree and woodland cover again. Whilst in an ideal world, trees and woodland would seldom, if ever, be removed, there remain many reasons why, from time to time, there will be some losses. These include:

• Land use changes due to other pressures, for example for housing and new built infrastructure
• Woodland trees being thinned as part of the management of the woodland – we suggest that active management of woodland, in most cases, is a good thing for people, nature, and climate, and can improve the economic viability of a woodland
• Tree felling for public safety
• Tree loss to disease or windthrow.

Landscapes and environments do change. The Mersey Forest Plan sets out a programme that sees new tree and woodland establishment, along with active management in accordance with the UK Forestry Standard, as a positive contribution people’s lives overall.