COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL

Monday, April 12, 2021

QUESTION NO.29

QUESTION: Councillor F. Timmons

To ask the chief executive for a report into how many trees will be planted in each electoral area for this council term ? and is there a figure on how many trees will be removed due to building or other reasons ?

REPLY:

In 2020 the target for tree planting in the annual programme was 2,000 new trees. Planting was not completed in 2020 due to Covid 19 restrictions and there are still trees to be planted in a number of areas from that planting programme. This work is now scheduled to be completed in the Autumn/Winter of 2021/'22.  In the 2021 tree planting programme the target for tree planting is 2,500 new trees.

Areas targeted for new tree planting will be those where trees have been removed or where there is an identified need to increase the overall tree cover. Requests from Council members and local residents for new trees in their road or area will be taken into consideration within the planting programme. Individual requests will be prioritised according to the number of trees already on the street, including those in front gardens and on adjacent land. Planting locations are inspected to assess its suitability. 

In 2020 the breakdown of trees planted was as follows -

• Lucan                    353
• Clondalkin              360
• Tallaght                 395
• Rathfarnham         372

There are no statistics on the number of trees removed due to building construction.  The Council's tree management operation removes dead and diseased trees as required and this in general results in the removal of around 1,000 trees per year.  As shown above the tree planting programme exceeds this number by a factor of two, and this is likely to continue and to expand further.