Residential streets in Newquay are set to get greener after the town was awarded £133,000 to plant new trees. 

Tree planting is scheduled to take place in January in Glamis Road and Chester Road in January following the successful grant bid by Forests for Cornwall under the government’s Urban Tree Challenge.    

There will also be trees planted in Hilgrove Road, Whitegate Road and St Aubyn Crescent next winter. 

Forests for Cornwall secured more than £300,000 to plant trees in various Cornish towns but Newquay has received the largest amount as it has got one of the lowest tree canopies in the Duchy. 

Newquay Town Council Green Party councillor Sarah Green, who has a vision of increasing the number of trees in Newquay, has been helping with the funding bid. 

The councillor suggested Glamis Road should become the focal point for the grant bid after a member of her Library Gardening group, who lives on the road, related how residents wanted the avenue of trees back.  

The trees had been planted in the 1990s by Newquay Tretherras students and had been gradually lost over the years.   

Cllr Thomson said: “I certainly remember more trees being around Newquay in the past and would love to see their return, especially in light of our changing weather patterns and the summer cooling effect that trees can offer in these super-hot Junes we seem to be now having.”  

Jonathan Warren of Forests for Cornwall shared the funding success to Cllr Thomson, whilst promoting the project at the Newquay Orchard, where his team were giving away free trees for small urban gardens.   

Cllr Thomson and the other Green Party councillors hope that the tree planting in residential Newquay streets is just the start. 

They want to make further tree-planting applications in the future.  Cllr Thomson is working with the town council and other organisations towards a Newquay Tree Strategy with a tree audit. 

A 10-year plan is also being written for Priory Wood that will develop the town council site into a “true community space that has improved access, gives educational access with increased biodiversity and is climate resilient.   

Cllr Thomson said: “To be ideal Cornwall Council would have a tree strategy that would make grant applications easier in the future.  I have so many requests for trees in residents’ roads and streets, it will be a wonderful vision for Newquay to have a substantial green canopy.”