BURY is home to more than £4.6 billion worth of trees which are helping tackle the borough’s pollution and keeping its green spaces beautiful, a survey has found.

According to the i-Tree survey, conducted by Manchester-based City of Trees, the borough is home to 1,065,225 made up of 58 different species with most common being English Oak, Hawthorn, Lawson Cypress, Ash and Sycamore.

The vegetation covers a total of 7,200 hectares, equating to nine per cent of Greater Manchester’s overall tree population, and ranking it seventh in the region for the greatest leaf area.

All of the top ten species populations, with the exception of Bury’s Sweet Cherry and English Oak trees, were found to have a condition rating of 75 per cent or more for the top three categories ­— Excellent, Good or Fair.

Researches also estimated that it would cost a total of more than £4.6 billion to replace Bury’s current tree population.

In addition to contributing to the borough’s beautiful open spaces and providing habitat for wildlife, the trees also perform a vital function in tackling pollution, cleaning the air we breathe and mopping up water runoff.

On a yearly basis Bury’s trees remove around 70 tonnes of pollution from the air, as well as storing 155,350 tonnes of carbon and sequestering 5,120 tonnes.

Around 137,810 cubic meters of runoff is avoided each year as a result of the trees. The study also found that the total annual benefits in these areas amounted to a value of almost £3 million.

Bury Council’s cabinet member for the environment, Cllr Alan Quinn, said: “As well as providing habitats, trees have terrific benefits for people’s health. People feel cleaner when they are surrounded by trees.

“We need to retain them and we are trying our best to do that.”