Release date: 26 January 2022
The County Council has secured Government funding to help reduce carbon emissions from its buildings and move towards achieving net zero.
Through a successful bid to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Low Carbon Skills Fund, the authority has received £326,189 to produce heat decarbonisation plans for 50 County Council sites.
These plans will identify how the council can reduce its reliance on heating systems run on fossil fuels, such as gas or oil, and move over to using alternatives such as heat pumps that emit less carbon and are better for the environment.
The plans will show where different clean energy technologies could be installed to heat the County Council’s buildings. This information, which should be available by spring 2022, will then be used to develop project business cases and bid for further funding to begin implementing the plans.
County Hall in Chichester, Parkside in Horsham, Crawley Library and the Worthing Community Hub are among the larger, hub sites that will be looked at under this work.
Cllr Deborah Urquhart, Deputy Leader and Cabinet Member for Environment and Climate Change, said: “Although we have done a great deal to improve the energy efficiency of our buildings and to install renewable energy systems, such as solar panels, we intend to do a great deal more to reduce our carbon emissions and lead by example when it comes to action on climate change.
"This funding is a welcome boost that will accelerate our work and ensure that our buildings are heated in an environmentally sustainable way.”
The Low Carbon Skills Fund is a Government scheme providing grants to support decarbonisation in the public sector. It is initiated by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and delivered by Salix Finance, who provide funding for public sector energy and energy efficiency projects.
The £326,189 for West Sussex County Council has been allocated under Phase 2 of the Low Carbon Skills Fund scheme.
