Give Britons the right to plant to green up public spaces, Gove adviser says

Sheffield city centre seen from an urban wildflower meadow. The report says the government’s levelling up strategy should include provisions for urban greenery. Photograph: Deborah Vernon/Alamy

A right to plant and grow trees and other greenery in public spaces should be given to people across Britain, an adviser to Michael Gove has said.

Nicholas Boys Smith, who heads the Office for Place in Gove’s Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), also chairs the thinktank Create Streets, which has released a report calling for more greening of cities.