成人快手

"It's a logistical nightmare - but worth it for the climate."

Joe Coles, from The Woodland Trust, is underneath a large London plane tree in Dortmund Square, in the middle of Leeds city centre.

The tree was planted in 2016 as part of a plan by Leeds City Council to make the town centre greener.

Speaking to 成人快手 Radio 5 Live, Joe says planting a tree of this size and maturity in the middle of a busy shopping area is difficult and expensive.

"This is one of the busiest parts of Leeds city centre," says Joe. "It probably has the highest footfall in the whole city.

"But underground there are gas mains, water mains, electric cables, broadband cables - all the cables and pipes you can imagine.

"That's real competition for the space that roots from the tree need to grow."

Joe explains the process needed to put a tree in the city.

First, the ground must be excavated to take away the rubble, concrete and other bits that have collected there since medieval times.

Then systems and structures must be installed to hold loose soil that the tree can thrive in without damaging cables. In the case of the London plane tree, this is a special 'tree pit', the size of a shipping container.

"In an open grown setting, a tree just puts its roots down, it can grow wherever it likes," says Joe. "[In the city] we need to restrict it and divert it into the spaces that we've provided for its roots."

Planting a tree in the city can cost tens of thousands of pounds and calculating whether it's a valuable use of money is difficult.

The eco-benefits are obvious.

"A London plane tree is great at capturing air pollution and shedding that pollution in its leaves and through its bark so it's helping protect the negative impact of climate change and human activity," says Joe.

Newly-planted trees are also helping Leeds floods defences after the city was badly hit by the 2015 Boxing Day floods.

But Joe thinks it is the health and social benefits, which are harder to measure, that are just as important.

"It's not just about trees for climate change and all the eco services that trees provide," he says.

"It's the people benefits too. It's bringing trees to where people are. With the highest footfall in Leeds, this tree here is being experienced by far more people than a tree in a field in the countryside."

Joe also believes retrofitting trees has a knock-on effect for climate change and the way people behave.

He says he has noticed residents in Sheffield are now living more sustainable lives since getting involved with a street-planting initiative.

"Changing people's thoughts and behaviours to lead more sustainable lives, it all depends on being close to nature.

"If you line a street with trees, it encourages people to walk and cycle more to appreciate the trees they planted," he adds.

The Woodland Trust is involved in a partnership to create a Northern Forest which will stretch coast to coast taking in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull.

The scheme is on track to have planted at least 3 million trees by the end of 2021.

The long term ambition is to plant an additional 50 million trees which will help reduce the risk of flooding, store thousands of tonnes of carbon, make people across the north happier and healthier and create thousands of new jobs.

• Leeds: City on a Mission is a year long project from 成人快手 Radio 5 Live following the city of Leeds as it tries to cut its carbon emissions. The station will follow city authorities, charities, universities and residents as they seek to reduce their carbon footprint. The city of Leeds has committed to being net carbon neutral by 2030.