Agency by William Gibson 
A target to plant 1,000 trees in Alsager has been set by two of the town’s green-fingered councillors.
Independent Coun Rachel White told the Chronicle that she would be “comfortable” if 1,000 trees were planted by the end of the financial year, a number that Green Party Coun Richard McCarthy agreed with.
Of those Coun White said she hoped 950 would be saplings planted in residents’ gardens.
She will be looking for interest in the tree planting project at Alsager Carnival on Saturday.
Coun White said: “I’m going to have a stall at the carnival to ask people about their views on climate change affecting Alsager, and I’m hoping to get residents to sign up for a sapling in their front garden to offset carbon.
“It does several things such as providing shade, it’s good for nature, and it combats carbon – it’s a way of us all chipping in to get down to net zero.
“It is just the first stage of gathering interest – I’ve had five people agree to it so far. I had no idea it would be such an uphill battle.”
Coun White explained that new councillors appointed onto the town council’s environmental and open spaces working group, which includes Coun McCarthy, were yet attend one of its meetings.
She added: “We haven’t discussed how many trees we want planted but I would be comfortable if we planted 1,000 trees to the end of March next year.
“The majority of those would be saplings, with 950 in people’s gardens and 50 for us to plant.”
In the nine months that Coun White has been on the council, she has been responsible for most of its green initiatives after claiming there had been little progress.
In April, the Chronicle reported that town authority was expected to fall short on its commitment to becoming carbon neutral by 2025 having made the pledge in 2019.
Of the tree planting project, Coun McCarthy said: “We used to live on Crewe Road and you couldn’t enjoy your front garden because of the constant sound of traffic, so houses situated on busy roads are the perfect place to plant a tree.
“It would be good to plant trees on council-owned land but there isn’t a lot of it, or at least that was the case while I was a councillor in Haslington – it might be a good idea to try and approach the farming community to see if they might welcome volunteers to help put up trees and hedges.
“In terms of the target, I think 1,000 trees in a place like Alsager would be pretty good.”
