The first phase of a multi-million-pound programme to decarbonise West Sussex County Council’s buildings has been finished, thanks to over £1 million in public funding.
The work included swapping gas boilers for air source heat pumps, installing solar panels, plus window and insulation upgrades. Seven libraries, six fire stations and a day centre were improved as part of these works; one of the libraries is now capable of running entirely on renewable energy.
West Sussex County Council’s decarbonisation works are set to cost £8.2 million, with around £1.4 million of this coming from the UK government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme.
Cabinet member for climate change Deborah Urquhart said: “This decarbonisation project supports our target to be a carbon neutral and climate resilient organisation by 2030. We are already considering how to fund and carry out further work to reduce the carbon footprint of many other county council buildings.”
The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme
The Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme has funded over 1,000 projects since its inception in 2020, and a recent round of funding allocated £530 million to public sector organisations for energy efficiency upgrades, including heat pumps, solar panels, insulation, and low-energy lighting. An additional £27.5 million of funding was provided to industrial operations through the Industrial Energy Transformation Fund to help hard-to-abate industries begin reducing their carbon emissions.
West Sussex County Council is not the only local authority to have received funding through this scheme; in the most recent funding round, the London Borough of Hackney was awarded almost £13 million for two projects that would install air and water-source heat pumps at ten schools, two community centres, a leisure centre, a nursing home and the Grade II listed Clissold House, with other London Boroughs and county councils receiving major funding injections too.
While announcing the latest funding recipients, then-Minister for Energy Efficiency and Green Finance Lord Callanan said: “From school corridors to the businesses that power up our economy, we want to make sure buildings of all shapes and sizes are supported to deliver net zero.
“By allocating over £557 million today, we are standing steadfast behind our public sector and local businesses, providing the help they need to make the switch to cleaner, homegrown energy. This will not only help cut bills in the long term, but ensure we keep reducing our emissions – having already led the world by halving them since 1990.”
