1. How many trees have been planted by the council since 1 January 2022?
Details regarding the number of trees planted each year by Devon County Council can be found on the Environment pages of our website under the dropdown “How many trees does Devon County Council plant”. This winter tree planting season (November 2023 to March 2024, which is not included on the website until the planting is complete) the Council expects to plant 14,050 trees.
2. How many trees have been cut down by the council since 1 January 2022?
Over the two years (2022 and 2023) Devon County Council felled 794 trees on County Council property as a result of annual tree inspections. Of those felled trees, approximately 40% were ash trees suffering from ash die back; 40% were elm (suffering from Dutch elm disease); and 20% were other species.
In addition, records in the Council’s Highways Tree Safety Management System indicate that the Council placed, in the period from 1 January 2022, orders to fell approximately 2,100 trees to date (11 March 2024). Please note however that where reports of imminently dangerous trees that require felling were received out of hours, those reports are held on a system that does not record if an instruction to fell a tree(s) was made.
Please be aware that cutting a tree down does not necessarily equate to killing or removing it, so simply subtracting the number of trees felled from the number of trees planted does not necessarily give an accurate change in the total number of live trees.