Finding Hope in the Green Belt

As we describe elsewhere, we have recently been working with Friends of the Earth to identify Hope Spots in the Green Belt that surrounds Bristol and Bath. These are locations that are suitable for local communities to plant new trees, as a way of both locking in carbon and to help regenerate nature.

Our candidate locations

There are ideal locations for the tree planting Hope Spots - located on relatively less productive agricultural land, not having high levels of biodiversity, or land used for community food production.

Defining suitability

For community sponsored tree planting to be successful, the candidate locations need to be near local populations. But it is also important to involve those communities who will have less access to green space and nature and for whom Hope Spots may be an important outlet: communities that have little, if any garden space; communities where car ownership is low; communities who are assessed as being deprived; and communities who are not near active places or green space.

Fusing the data to find Hope Spots

And if we combine our candidate locations with the suitability score, we find a number of interesting locations that may be appropriate for community sponsored tree planting, for example around Dundry, Newton St Loe, and Dyrham.

Contextual mapping

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