Thank you for your feedback on the Thamesmead Urban Forest Strategy!

Peabody, Land Use Consultants and Trees for Cities have researched the existing trees and woodlands in Thamesmead: how much there is, where, what size and species there are and what risks they might face in the future. We have also engaged with people to understand what people that live and work in Thamesmead think about their urban forest.

The public consultation for the strategy has now closed. Thank you for all your feedback over the last few months to prepare this plan for Thamesmead's trees. We will be sharing the final strategy in the next couple of months - keep an eye out! 

If you have any further questions or comments about our consultation, please get in touch with community@treesforcities.org . 

What is in the Thamesmead Urban Forest Strategy? 

Our vision for Thamesmead's Urban Forest is: 

"For Thamesmead to have a healthy and resilient Urban Forest that is valued as a key part of it’s identity. Trees and woodlands are appreciated as critical infrastructure, underpinning healthy and sustainable communities within Thamesmead’s nature-rich urban environment. 

The benefits of trees and woodlands are shared equally across all Thamesmead’s neighbourhoods. The local community, together with a wide range of partners, work together to understand, care for, and invest in Thamesmead’s Urban Forest.“

There are five main challenges for trees in Thamesmead that our strategy needs to address: 

1. Thamesmead has lots of trees but they are not equally spread across Thamesmead and not everyone benefits from them.
2. There is not much diversity in the tree species and many trees were planted at the same time, which means that the urban forest is more vulnerable to climate change and diseases.
3. Large numbers of trees are likely to be lost in Thamesmead over the coming decades because of known diseases (for example ash trees) and because of climate changes making the environment more difficult for the current trees.
4. Many people appreciate the urban forest and want to be engaged with growing and caring for it, but opportunities aren’t reaching everyone. More needs to be done to engage people and make sure everyone can access and appreciate the urban forest.
5. There is a dedicated team within Peabody that care for over 53,000 trees in partnership with a range of other organisations and public bodies, but there is a need to build more knowledge and skills for managing the Urban Forest more effectively and to improve our understanding of it.   

From our vision and challenges, there are three main aims of the action plan: 

Aim 1: Build resilience and support sustainable placemaking

Invest in a healthy, diverse, and climate-resilient tree population in the long term.

Aim 2: Increase equity

Improve how the urban forest is spread across Thamesmead so that everyone has access to the benefit of trees and grow the local communities engagement with the care and growth of their urban forest.

Aim 3: Build capacity and foster collaboration

Strengthen collaboration and coordination with local people and partner organisations, to share resources and build knowledge so that Urban Forest is managed and grown more sustainably.

Why do we need a Thamesmead Urban Forest Strategy? 

Thamesmead's urban forest is made up of all the trees and woodlands in Thamesmead. It includes trees in parks and gardens, woodlands and nature reserves, street trees, and the trees and tree groups along the area's railway lines, lakes, canals and along the River Thames. But the urban forest is also made up of the ecosystem of people and wildlife that live among the trees. 

Trees play a vital role across Thamesmead as part of its green infrastructure. They provide a range of quantifiable benefits, including contributing to the health and wellbeing of residents, improving air quality, providing wildlife habitat, shading and urban cooling and reducing flooding. 

Peabody owns and manages 65% of Thamesmead, which includes 240 hectares of green space made up of five public parks, five lakes, seven kilometres of canals and over 53,000 trees. Having all this to manage makes having a plan useful to create green, healthy and sustainable places to live. 

Peabody also wants to ensure that the Thamesmead Urban Forest Strategy reflects local needs through meaningful engagement and a collaborative approach with residents and other stakeholders, including young people, community groups, nature experts, artists and business owners. 

In September 2025 we held online community discussions with Thamesmead residents and other local stakeholders about the new strategy. Mary Jansson from Land Use Consultants gave a presentation with more information about the strategy which can be watched below.