Dudley and Telford homes the greenest while Shrewsbury are most polluting, figures show

The average household in Shrewsbury produced more than four times as much carbon dioxide per year than in Dudley, which topped the energy efficiency table in the West Midlands.

The study, by price comparison site Save On Energy, looked at the total household CO2 emissions from 87 major towns and cities across the UK.

Unsurprisingly, London and Birmingham produced the most CO2 emissions in the country, with London producing nearly 5.9 billion kg per annum, and Birmingham just under 2.5 billion kg.

Birmingham was also the biggest polluter in the West Midlands, ahead of Coventry, which produced 1.14 billion kg, Stoke-on-Trent (829 million kg), with Shrewsbury in fourth place on 607m kg. Telford had the lowest overall CO2 level in the region, producing just 281m kg a year, also making it the sixth least polluting town in the UK.

However, when the number of households are taken into account, Dudley narrowly emerged as the greenest town in the region, producing 3,412.5kg per household, ahead of Telford on 3,728.6kg. Wolverhampton and Walsall also performed well, with the former producing 4,471.8kg per household, and the latter 4,595.4kg. Dudley, Telford and Wolverhampton all made it into the top 10 least polluting towns in the UK.

The study was unable to provide a figure per household for Shrewsbury, but taking the number of households from the 2011 census of 43,646, one can calculate that the average household produces 13,898.9kg a year, making it the most polluting of the 10 West Midlands towns to feature in the study.

Impacts

While Birmingham produced the most CO2 in the West Midlands overall, this was largely down to its larger population. It was actually the fifth least polluting per household, at 5,682.2kg.

The survey did not include figures for Stafford, Cannock, Lichfield, West Bromwich or Kidderminster.

Adrian Cooper, leader of Shropshire Council’s climate change task force, questioned the figures, which are based on emissions from residential properties. He said in most areas travel would have been the biggest source of CO2 emissions.

Mr Cooper said Government data on carbon emissions per head in 2017 ranked Shropshire 16th out of 33 local authorities in the West Midlands, just behind 14th placed Telford, while Dudley came fifth.

"More dense, urban authorities should benefit from economies of scale and more limited transport impacts such as shorter journeys to work and easier access to public transport," he said.

"This means that Shrewsbury’s performance should be better than that of Shropshire which is a very large, rural county with a very low population density.

"It is therefore significant that some largely urban local authorities with similar size towns such as Stafford, Bromsgrove and Stratford have CO2 emissions per head of population which are significantly higher than that for Shropshire, and I think that raises significant doubts as to how representative the performance is in practice."

Total CO2 emissions from residential properties (kg)

• Birmingham – 2,485,115,000

• Coventry – 1,138,395,000

• Stoke-on-Trent – 829,452,000

• Shrewsbury – 606,631,000

• Walsall – 530,678,000

• Wolverhampton – 492,256,000

• Dudley – 472,502,000

• Worcester – 426,005,000

• Hereford – 292,678,000

• Telford – 281,178,000

CO2 emissions per household (kg)

• Dudley - 3,412.5

• Telford - 3,728.7

• Wolverhampton - 4,471.8

• Walsall - 4,595.4

• Birmingham - 5,682.2

• Stoke-on-Trent - 7,193.9

• Coventry - 8,096.1

• Worcester - 9,301.4

• Hereford - 11,523.7*

• Shrewsbury - 13,898.9*

*Based on 2011 census data for number of households