{"id":602553,"date":"2026-05-25T06:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T06:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/602553\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T06:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T06:17:11","slug":"tree-shortages-in-coastal-towns-a-risk-to-health-charity-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/602553\/","title":{"rendered":"Tree shortages in coastal towns a risk to health, charity says"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Wrexham recognised an urgent necessity to increase our urban canopy cover back in 2014,” said Jon Brewin, an arboriculture officer at the council.<\/p>\n

“We plan to extend our canopy target through a combination of fine-tuning the actions and objectives [of the authority’s strategy] and utilising the highly informative data provided by the Woodland Trust tree equity score, external<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

It is score is based on a number of factors, including the amount of tree canopy cover compared with other factors such as the density of housing and roads and the numbers of older people and children.<\/p>\n

And while sea breezes in coastal towns may help reduce air pollution to some extent, as well as potentially making it harder for some types of trees to grow and thrive, Coed Cadw said all urban environments needed to ensure they had adequate areas of tree coverage.<\/p>\n

“The benefits that are provided by trees are only provided by trees,” said Inigo Atkin, the charity’s public affairs manager.<\/p>\n

“Trees make a massive difference to air pollution.<\/p>\n

“On really, really hot days, trees are incredibly good at absorbing heat which doesn’t then get reflected off the pavement and bring the whole temperature of the urban environment up by five, six, seven or eight degrees more than you would expect in an area that’s quite leafy.”<\/p>\n

Coed Cadw believes that up to 25% of urban areas should be covered by a canopy of mature trees.<\/p>\n

The charity wants Welsh local authorities “to be bold and ambitious when it comes to planning and decision-making around urban trees”.<\/p>\n

It added a 2025 Woodland Trust survey of more than 2,000 people living in urban areas found that 88% believed everyone should have fair access to trees and the benefits they provide, no matter where they lived.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“Wrexham recognised an urgent necessity to increase our urban canopy cover back in 2014,” said Jon Brewin, an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":602554,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-602553","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602553","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=602553"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/602553\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/602554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=602553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=602553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=602553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}