Plant a forest to offset Erddig development carbon emissions?

Researchers from the campaign group Cymuned have discovered that the National Trust would have to plant up to 7000 trees PER YEAR to offset carbon emissions that would be produced by their planned ‘new village’ development at Erddig, in the north of Wales.

“This staggering figure shows that the National Trust’s hypocritical stance on development for profit is now completely morally unacceptable,” said Aran Jones, Cymuned’s Chief Executive. “Instead of guarding green spaces as their members want them to, they are causing massive environmental damage as a result of blatant short-termism.”

Concerns have been expressed by campaigners for almost two years that the development is not sustainable. The housing situation in North East Wales has made it virtually impossible for local people to afford housing. This has lead to a situation where many commuter villages have been developed in the area which has lead to further increases in local house prices.

The majority of the 223 houses on the Trust’s controversial development at Erddig in Wrecsam will be bought by people wanting to commute to and from the major conurbations of the North West of England.

Cymuned researcher Cindy Stewart used figures estimated by the Sightline institute, an environmental and sustainability think tank in the Pacific Northwest, to calculate the shocking results. Cindy said “The number of trees needed to be planted (since trees don’t all live 40 years) is based on estimates by Trees for the Future. I used a modest estimate based on distances travelled by commuters from the four main commuter areas of Chester, Ellesmere Port, Liverpool and Manchester, on the basis that roughly 75% of houses on the development will be bought from outside Wrecsam, which is in line with current trends. The estimates are based on the assumption that people will only have one car per household and are ’trip to work’ estimates only. These figures are truly frightening.
I don’t seem to recall a forest being included in the proposed development, but they’re going to need one to offset these emissions.”

The figures reveal that the commuter development could emit up to 1369 tons of CO2 annually, needing 6843 trees planted per year to offset the damage.