Brighton & Hove’s elm trees need you!

Elms are beautiful, majestic trees. Brighton & Hove is home to the National Elm Collection, with a third of our Brighton trees being Elms.

But they are in danger – every year we are losing more of our precious Elm trees to Elm Disease. With vaccination, we can help protect them from this devastating disease.

Brighton & Hove City Council has successfully treated over 2000 trees in parks and public spaces over the last couple of years. The programme is new and covers as many Elms as possible, but it doesn’t extend to residential streets. Some residents have begun to club together and work with the Council to fund vaccinations, in order to protect their much-loved Elm street trees.

The Pembroke Residents’ Tree Group has recently been founded to maintain and replenish the street tree heritage in Pembroke Avenue, Crescent and Gardens.

Saving Elm trees for future generations: 

The first vital task of the Pembroke Trees Group is to save the remaining approximately 20 Elm trees in their area. These valuable trees are part of the UK National Elm Collection. Tree inspections indicate that all 22 trees are suitable for vaccination.

Please make a donation towards the £1000 needed to fund vaccinations this spring. Go to: https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/29774

Help to replant trees:

In time, The Pembroke Residents’ Tree Group plans to replace the trees lost to age and disease with new young both forest and flowering trees including disease-resistant Elms.

With your support, the Group plans to replace as many of the 30+ felled trees on Pembroke Crescent, Avenue and Gardens as they can!

This will take time. Fundraising and replacing trees is a long-term project. It is also costly – removing stumps and making pavements and roads good even more so.

The Group has applied for match funding from the Better Brighton & Hove Fund to plant seven new trees in the areas’ empty tree pits. If the bid is successful and the sites are suitable, trees will be planted in winter 2026/27.

• Can you support the Pembroke Residents’ Tree Group to replant trees? Please donate at: https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/29774

You can also:

• Commit your long-term support to vaccinate these trees annually.
• Commit your long-term support in our re-planting programme to replace our lost trees with fund-raising, publicity and donations.

Contact: pembroketrees@gmail.com

Other ways you can help:

• Tell us if you have Elm trees in your back garden-so they can be protected too.
• Check your log piles for Elm logs, the logs harbour beetles that spread the disease. Contact the Brighton & Hove Council if you’re in doubt!  They will check, remove diseased logs and replace them.

To find out more about the Pembroke Tree Group contact: pembroketrees@gmail.com

Supported by: Plant your Postcode, a CPRE Sussex volunteer project in Brighton & Hove.