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Issue 6 - May 2024
Welcome to the sixth edition of our climate change in Cheshire East newsletter
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Get involved with our wider borough consultation
Long Lane tree planting future image
In January 2022 we committed to the UK100 climate pledge and adopted a target of 2045 for the borough of Cheshire East to be carbon neutral.
To help people understand the scale of the commitment we had made, we commissioned a carbon baseline study [
]. [
] As a borough, Cheshire East had a carbon footprint of 2,845 ktCO2e, which in layman terms is slightly more than the last Olympics in Tokyo and roughly calculated to be the same as half a million cars.
We understand that reducing the huge figure to zero is not going to be the work of a single organisation, we need to work together as a community to reach this goal.
Cheshire East Council has developed an initial draft action plan for 2024-29 but we need your feedback and suggestions to make sure that the way forward we are proposing is the right one for our fantastic borough.
Our consultation is open until the end of May and can be accessed by following this link Carbon Neutrality Action Plan Consultation (cheshireeast.gov.uk) [
].
We would really love to hear from you.
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Carbon neutral by 2027 - are we on track?
Leighton Grange Solar Farm 2024 [
]
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As a council, we are working towards being carbon neutral by 2027. Although we want to reduce our emissions as much as possible, it is not going to be realistic to get them to zero by that time, so we are also working to offset carbon by building renewable energy generation assets and planting trees.
We are in the process of building our first solar farm at Leighton Grange, Crewe – just next to our composting facility.
The 4.1MW farm will provide a lot of the electricity required by the composting plant and we will be sending the residual power to the grid.
As more of us move to electric solutions for our vehicles and our heating, we will need increased electricity generation to keep up with demand.
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Tree-planting at Long Lane in Peover
Long Lane
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Offsetting carbon by tree planting is a concept you are likely to be familiar with, as more and more people choose this method of offsetting their flights or long car journeys.
We have partnered with The Mersey Forest and Cheshire Wildlife Trust to plant trees, re-wet peat and establish wildflower meadows.
Our largest tree planting project to date is a 15ha woodland planting scheme at Peover, funded by Trees for Climate grant funding, which took place recently.
In addition to sequestering carbon, these trees will provide habitat for many birds and animals.
Building decarbonisation
Jordangate
The council understands that the primary focus of our decarbonisation activity must be the reduction of our own emissions.
We have therefore been working on our own buildings, using grant funding from the government to find better lighting and heating solutions.
Over several rounds of funding we have insulated roofs, changed lights to LED and installed air source heat pumps (ASHP) at our libraries, offices and leisure centres.
As these measures use more electricity, we have also installed solar panels on as many of our roofs as we can.
We’re hoping to get all of our ASHPs fully operational before next winter and to see our gas usage reduce dramatically as a result.
Thank you for reading our carbon newsletter – we would welcome your thoughts on it. Please send any ideas and suggestions to carbon@cheshireeast.gov.uk
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This email was sent to david.obrien@trustedcarcheck.co.uk using GovDelivery Communications Cloud, on behalf of: Cheshire East Council · Delamere House, Delamere Street, Crewe, Cheshire, CW1 2JZ
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