Editorial: ​An Ulster wood has now been saved - this is welcome news as trees are a thing of beauty but they are also precious for environmental reasons

A protected wood has been saved from development in Newtownards.

​As we report on page two, housing plans on the site of Tullynagardy Wood have been rejected by the Planning Appeals Commission.

Residents had opposed the felling of trees, some of which are up to 200 years old. To put that in perspective, someone born when this newspaper – the world’s oldest English language daily – was launched in 1737 could have still been alive in their 80s when the first of those trees began to grow.

Some trees in the province are even older than that, in cases 500+ years.

Trees are precious not only for aesthetic reasons – and an ancient copse, for example, is a thing of beauty – but also for environmental ones. They absorb carbon dioxide, they help regulate climate, improve air quality, stabilise soil, provide shade and they are wildlife habitats.

Prior to the plantation of the 1600s, Ulster was a heavily forested place. Now it is a deforested part of Europe.

There are, though, encouraging developments. Neighbourhoods that have gardens that are large but not so big to be able to be destroyed by developers are often bursting with trees and vegetation, make parts of suburban Northern Ireland a joy to travel through in summer. There have also been big tree plantations by groups like the Woodland Trust.

NI has a poor record when it comes to conservation.

We are much less good at protecting fine old buildings than is England, which is all the more depressing given that we have fewer grand old buildings than England does. We are also less good at protecting our countryside due to cross-party support for loose planning restrictions in rural areas (not only is England stricter against such housing, France is too).

And we do not have strong tree protection laws and fines for those who breach them. This ban on housing in Ards, however, is a welcome one.