Greentalk brings tree data collected by Bradford Council alive
When you walk past one of our cherry trees along the Grove you might not realise that it is recorded on a database maintained by the Trees Team in Bradford Council; along with another 27,000 trees planted in public places throughout the City.
The Greentalk system makes these records, which in many cases includes species and age, available to the public in an easy and engaging way.
The Trees Team have subscribed to the system but just for the Ilkley Ward at the moment. We are taking part in a trial to see if the system should be made available to other wards in Bradford.
Using GreenTalk
You can visit the Bradford GreenTalk home page via. https://bradford.greentalk.io/
Click on Visit Map and you will be taken straight to a map of Ilkley with several hundred trees marked. Zoom in, click on a green circle and in many cases it will tell you the type of tree. Remember that the system covers public trees only. Trees on private land are not included.
It is worth taking the time to explore all the features of the system and here are some tips to get you started:-
Tips for using GreenTalk
1) It’s useful to understand that Greentalk is organised on two levels: Bradford is the top level and Ilkley is a neighbourhood within Bradford. At the moment Ilkley is the only neighbourhood but more could be added in the future.
2) If you are on the Bradford level and want to switch to the Ilkley level use the menu in the top righthand corner to click on Ilkley. If you are on the Ilkley level and want to go up to the Bradford level click on “Bradford Greentalk” in the top left hand corner.
Note that the Create a Green Walk function is only available from the Bradford level.
3) When you click on a tree you usually get a photo and description of the species on the left side of your screen which is very useful. But note that these are generic and don’t describe the particular tree in Ilkley. We hope we can improve on that in the future.
4) When you click on a “Visit Map” button you will see a map of Ilkley which you can zoom in and out of. Don’t miss the bar at the bottom of the map which lets you see which species are in the view. For example zoom in on Spence Gardens (corner of Grove Road and Kings Rd) and you should see Indian Bean Tree listed. Click on this and you will see a blue circle around the tree on the map. It is worth spending a bit of time playing with this feature as it is a great way of learning about the trees round about you.
5) The data about trees in Ilkley has been built up over the years by different people in the Bradford Trees Team. Don’t expect it to be 100% accurate and some are missing or set to a default value. The Ilkley Trees Initiative hope to improve this over time.