People living near Leeds woodland suffering from 'unmaintained, overgrown trees', according to councillors

According to a motion, known as a white paper, set to go before Leeds City Council decision-makers this week, the authority will be called on to rethink its stratregy when it comes to the management of its trees.

It comes as Leeds City Council starts work on plans to plant 100 new acres of woodland every year until 2045, which is set to add another 5.6 million trees to the woodland already managed by the council.

But the paper, set to be presented to the council's Conservatives group at this week's full Leeds City Council meeting, accuses the authority of not doing enough to manage its current parks and forests, calling on services to be better resourced.

"Council supports the aim to plant 50 hectares of woodland on council land every year until 2045, adding 5.6 million trees to the 1,400 hectares of woodland that it already manages.

"In light of the scale of this tree planting ambition, however, Council believes it is time for the administration to rethink its approach to tree maintenance in the city. Too often, the concerns of local people living near woodland or residential trees are overlooked, whilst unmaintained and overgrown trees are allowed to continue to have an adverse effect, due to a combination of inflexible policy, lack of staff, and insufficient resources.

"Council believes it would be irresponsible to make this situation worse by failing to adequately resource the Forestry Service so that it can meet the tree maintenance demands of existing trees and the millions of new trees due to be planted over the coming years."

It went on to suggest council officers look into options for a "review of policy and resources", focussing on the quality of life for residents.

The motion will be voted on in a full meeting of Leeds City Council on Wednesday, March 23.