Conservative councillors in South Gloucestershire say they are helping to make the district ‘greener’.
Five new solar electricity photovoltaic (PV) systems have now been installed on council buildings across the district, including Bradley Stoke, Longwell Green, Thornbury and Yate Leisure Centres, to take advantage of the Feed-in Tariff (FIT), which earns money from energy suppliers.
The schemes were funded after Conservative councillors doubled the council’s ‘Local Authority Carbon Management’ (LACM) scheme budget to £200k a year.
And this year, almost £3m of additional council funding has been agreed to improve the energy efficiency of local homes and schools – with £1.05m to complement the Government’s ‘Green Deal’ home energy-saving scheme and £1.86m to fund energy-saving improvements and renewable energy schemes in schools.
Other measures to reduce energy costs/carbon emissions and promote renewable energy include rationalising the council’s estate by selling empty and inefficient buildings and carrying out energy audits, installing Automatic Meter Reading and producing half hourly data to allow effective monitoring of energy usage.
Cllr John Goddard (Con, Hanham) Conservative Cabinet Member for Corporate Affairs:
“Last year, we doubled the budget available to make council buildings more cost effective for the council tax payer.”
“And this year we have set aside almost £2m to help green up our schools and over a £1m to help residents with their energy bills, which comes on top of the £93 that the average household has saved thanks to our two year council tax freeze.”
“This is just part of multi-pronged approach to save residents money and transform the district’s green credentials from the low base that had existed for too long following South Gloucestershire Council’s creation.”
Source: Conservative Group on South Gloucestershire Council
