A three-year project which has seen more than 40,000 trees planted across the Aire Valley is coming to an end.

The Greening Airedale project, part of the Green Infrastructure Programme, has seen regional development agency Yorkshire Forward pump £97,000 into the Bradford district to transform swathes of green land through tree planting.

The funding for the project, which is due to finish next month, was secured through the White Rose Forest, a county-wide partnership made up of local authorities, the National Trust, Yorkshire Water and smaller organisations such as Bradford Environmental Action Trust, which includes the Forest of Bradford. Ian Butterfield, project manager at the Forest of Bradford, said the programme had seen a further £97,000 drawn in through match funding.

He said the two biggest sites for tree-planting had been at Thwaite, in Keighley, where 4,000 trees had been planted, and the former landfill site at Flappits, near Cullingworth, where 7,000 trees had been planted.

He said that with Yorkshire Forward being scrapped, they would have to find an alternative to their funding. “In the long run we are hoping to plant about a million trees,” said Mr Butterfield.

  • Read the full story in Wednesday’s T&A