Make UK cities cool - National tree and horticulture organisations call for urgent green infrastructure before extreme heat becomes the norm - Horticultural Trades Association

Leading national tree and horticultural organisations – the Woodland Trust, the Horticultural Trades Association (HTA) and the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) are making a renewed call to Ministers, and all levels of government, to act now to cool UK cities through green infrastructure, warning that repeated extreme heat is already reshaping daily life and risks becoming the new summer norm.

The warning comes after the UK saw record-breaking heat twice this year, with London recording an all-time May high of 35.1°C and the UK then experiencing provisional record-breaking June heat on three consecutive days during last week’s heatwave. The organisations say the solution is already in front of us: more trees, more green infrastructure, and a stronger domestic tree-production sector able to supply the planting the country urgently needs.

The latest Met Office figures show why action cannot wait: the UK provisionally set a new UK daily maximum temperature record for June on 24 June, before it was exceeded on the following two days as the heatwave intensified. Temperatures reached 37.7°C at Lingwood, Norfolk, on 26 June, while the Mayor of London’s Heat Ready London plan warned that rising temperatures are already putting homes, schools, hospitals, care services and infrastructure under pressure.