A NEW £130,000 green initiative will involve a local authority making its own land available for planting hundreds of new trees to combat climate change.

Pendle Borough’s full council meeting agreed to a resolution from Barnoldswick Liberal Democrat Cllr Tom Whipp to support the Lancashire Woodland Connect campaign, led by the Ribble Rivers Trust.

This involves releasing its own land for the campaign’s tree planting schemes along with a £30,000 grant.

The meeting also earmarked £50,000 for environmentally-friendly capital schemes and another £50,000 for climate crisis initiatives.

Cllr Whipp’s motion also urged the council to ask other landowners to make their land available for tree planting projects and use the planning process to encourage such schemes.

He said: “Growing trees can capture a lot of carbon, planting them is an easy way to help mitigate the climate crisis. And there’s a huge task to reduce emissions in the first place. The decisions at the meeting are small steps in the right direction. Much more needs to be done.

“The Woodland Connect campaign is an excellent science-based initiative to plant more than 500,000 trees. As well as helping combat climate change, planting trees will see improvements in water quality, improvements in bio-diversity and will help in the fight against flooding.

"I’m delighted Pendle Council voted to play a full part in the tree planting programme.”