PLANTING trees will help the water company that covers south Shropshire to keep their bills low, it's been claimed.

Severn Trent Water has pledged it will plant 1.3million trees across its patch over the next five years to help improve the environment.

The company said the new trees will also help reduce future flooding and improve water quality, which they said will also help keep bills low.

The company has already planted 700,000 trees in the past five years.

Severn Trent Chief Executive Liv Garfield said: "Everyone knows that planting trees is great for the environment but they can also really help the quality of our rivers.

"We'll be working hand-in-hand with farmers across our patch to find the best way to get them to plant more trees and so reduce the run off of chemicals in rivers that then find their way to our treatment works.

"By doing that, we help keep our rivers cleaner and also reduce the amount of treatment we have to give our wonderful water before it goes to our customers.

"In the long-term, increasing the number of trees in the region will also help reduce flooding as they're an amazing natural barrier when planted in the right place.

The Severn Trent pledge is part of a wider water industry initiative to plant 11million trees across England to support their goal of achieving a carbon neutral water industry by 2030.

The trees, which are all native species, will be paid for by Severn Trent but supplied by the Woodland Trust.