Wirral Council is hitting its target on tree planting, despite an officer saying otherwise last week.
The authority has set itself the goal of planting over 210,000 trees by 2030.
But at an environment and transport committee meeting on March 16, council officer Mike Cockburn said around 10,000 have been planted so far this season, approximately half of Wirral’s yearly target.
The head of service for environment and climate change added that the pandemic was responsible for the shortfall and that given the restrictions the figure of 10,000 was a significant achievement.
But the ECHO understands that Mr Cockburn had missed out thousands of trees from his figures due to a data error.
With the additional trees added in, over 13,000 have been planted in Wirral since the start of the pandemic.
With up to 7,000 more planned by April, the council is actually on track to meet a target which will see tree canopy cover double by 2030.
Cllr Liz Grey, chair of Wirral Council’s environment and transport committee, said: “Despite all the challenges of the past 12 months, it’s great that we are still on track to meet our tree planting target and I’d like to pay tribute to everyone who has helped to make that happen.
“Since we declared a ‘Climate Emergency’ in 2019 we’ve set out some really ambitious goals, including becoming net carbon neutral by 2030, ensuring a 20% net gain in biodiversity across all council land and planting over 210,000 trees by 2030.
“As restrictions are eased, we will be encouraging members of the community to get involved in growing and planting even more trees and we’ll be supporting community efforts to raise money and apply for funds to do so.”
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Over the last 12 months a number of planting schemes have taken place, including a project of over 10,000 trees in the Eco Schools Programme and 1,520 trees at Eastham Country Park.
Wirral Council said it will continue to identify locations for new planting schemes which will begin again when the next planting season starts in November.
