A TREE planting event has taken over a village to mark the start of the planting season.

The session took place in Ramsey, where there will be 14,000 new trees planted as part of the Essex Forest Initiative.

Councillor Peter Schwier, the Essex Climate Czar, has also attended the council-owned farmland, which sits on the Dovercourt Dock River.

With the farmland being on a seasonal flood plain, there will be seven hectares of wet woodland alongside the river created thanks to the initiative.

The tree planting is expected to increase biodiversity in the area and provide habitat to local water vole populations and other water-based species such as otter.

It will also work to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and water from the flood plain, helping in the county’s target of reaching net-zero by 2050 and reducing the flood risk in the area.

Essex County councillor Graham Butland, responsible for the Essex Forest Initiative, said: “The Essex Forest Initiative has wasted no time by acting quickly at the start of tree planting season as it works towards its ambitious but achievable target of 375,000 trees by the winter of 2025/26.”

The Essex County Council’s Essex Forest Initiative is planting some 78,000 trees this year.