Green Streets®
The Green Streets® programme focusses on urban tree planting and aims to improve air quality, make our urban spaces more attractive for businesses and investment, and encourage the uptake of active travel. The programme looks to integrate more natural and semi-natural areas, such as water bodies and green wooded spaces (green and blue infrastructure), into transportation and urban design in North and West Yorkshire.
The Green Streets® programme has a strong focus on areas of development, more deprived areas and on creating more equitable access for communities. Street trees are a priority for White Rose Forest delivery, as they help neighbourhoods adapt to climate change by providing shade, air and rainfall filters, improve recreation opportunities and link important habitats across our urban centres.
Imagine living in a community where the main roads are lined with trees, groves of trees are dotted throughout the urban space, cycling infrastructure links up and takes pedestrian-commuters through parks and ecological corridors, and wildlife has more habitat and space to thrive. These are the Green Streets® principles in action.
There is no doubt that trees are good for us. Increasing tree cover in our urban environment:
- helps our towns and cities adapt to a changing climate and become more resilient to the challenges this creates.
- improves our air quality
- provides better access to green spaces for residents and workers
- captures and stores rainwater and reduces the impact of surface water flooding
- creates a barrier between pedestrians, cycle routes, and traffic to make people feel safer next to busy roads
- provides important habitats for wildlife
- improves the visual appeal of the urban environment
- enhances key transportation networks
Measuring the benefits of urban tree planting
It is difficult to quantify all the benefits that trees bring us. We refer to the work we do as providing nature-based solutions, which means action inspired by nature that addresses societal challenges, such as climate change, by protecting, restoring, and sustainably managing natural or modified ecosystems. The White Rose Forest works with Liverpool John Moores University to provide the best estimates of the monetary value of the work we do. This work will continue to develop in order to win the social and economic argument for more trees in our urban areas, be this from the savings to the NHS, reducing our carbon footprint, attracting more business investment or increasing the value of our homes.
Partnership Programmes
Thousands of street trees have been planted in the urban areas of North and West Yorkshire over the last five years through the White Rose Forest Green Streets® programme. We will continue to work with our local authority and combined authority partners to identify suitable opportunities and secure resources to support the greening of priority locations.
Delivery through the work of partners, guided by the Green Streets® Principles, will become increasingly important, for instance the greening of the corridor for the Mass Transit tramway between Leeds and Bradford. As the demand for new housing persists, there will be opportunities for new, greener urban edge development, such as the Garden Communities in Calderdale, in line with the ambitions of the National Planning Policy Framework.
Green Streets® Principles
The aims of the Green Streets® Principles are to:
- Establish a collaborative framework for the development of infrastructure projects supporting Green Streets® delivery, which encourages the appropriate professional input at every stage of working.
- Secure the optimal social, economic and environmental benefits from blue-green infrastructure delivered through Green Streets® projects.
Adopting the Green Street Principles means that high quality tree and hedgerow planting and green space is considered right at the outset of relevant work programmes to make sure it is delivered to the highest standards.
The Green Streets® team works alongside a multi-disciplinary Partnership Group of local authority and combined authority officers to embed this approach into future policy, strategies and action on the ground.
Read the White Rose Forest Strategic Plan 2025-2050 to find out how Green Streets® fits into White Rose Forest partnership priorities.
Please get in touch to find out more about our Green Streets® projects in North and West Yorkshire
New study provides insight into how access to trees and greenspaces in English cities can be improved
February 4, 2026
Green Streets® in action: Adding value for nature and the community in Mixenden.
January 16, 2026
What is the role for Green Streets® in a scheme like Leeds South Bank?
November 20, 2025