EEDA - East of England Development Agency

Communities win funding for low carbon dreams

9 July 2008

Six communities from across the region have won funding from the East of England Development Agency's Cut your Carbon competition to make their low carbon plans a reality.

The communities successfully pitched their proposals to a judging panel and will now receive funding from the first round of Cut your Carbon, which has £2.5 million available over the next three years to fund even more innovative and inspiring ways to cut carbon emissions.   

The funding winners were:

Wenhaston Energy Support Group (WESG) in Suffolk, has been awarded £70,000 from the Cut your Carbon competition to install electricity generating solar panels and a biomass system using wood pellets to replace a 20 year old boiler at their village hall. With poor access to local services, the village hall provides a vital facility for this rural community in Suffolk, housing rural services at risk such as a Post Office, doctor's surgery and a youth group. Over the past couple of years, the residents of Wenhaston have organised a host of carbon cutting measures including bulk buying deals for solar hot water panels and a community insulation day and the judges felt they could be an example to others.

Reepham, a Norfolk town has been awarded £30,000 to develop a car club, which they hope will reduce car ownership and emissions among community members. It is an idea which has worked in a city context before but this will be the first full trial of the concept in a rural setting. The project will also help people who don't have ready access to transport now, and will use vehicles with ultra low emissions.

Sproughton, a Suffolk village which has been awarded £112,000 to breathe new life into its historic tithe barn, making it the flagship of their award-winning carbon reduction project. They propose to refurbish the historic building by taking off the wooden exterior, applying solid insulation and then putting it back on, which could become a model for other similar buildings to go green. The barn will act as a carbon reduction and environmental resource centre and be marketed as a 'green' venue. 

Flitton and Greenfield Carbon Challenge group in Bedfordshire, have been granted £26,520 for their school solar energy project. Community action is the main focus of the Cut your Carbon campaign, so it is exceptional to fund a school, but the judges were particularly impressed with the level of community involvement in the project and felt the wider benefits the community will receive made the project worth funding.

Holt Area Partnership, a group of villages in North Norfolk will receive between £35,000 - £50,000 to fund a pilot project to change existing street lights to solar powered alternatives which use motion sensors to know when to turn on. The results of the pilot will demonstrate the viability of this technology.

Brickendon Liberty, a Hertfordshire village, have been awarded £5,000 towards energy monitors for everyone taking part in their new 'Watt Watchers' scheme, which mimics a typical slimming club and invites villagers to attend meetings, clutching their electricity bills to compare readings. 

These communities were among nine communities shortlisted to present, on 8 July, in a friendly "Dragon's Den" to a panel of expert judges, including: Edward Hyams, Chairman of the UK Energy Saving Trust, Dave Hampton the well known 'carbon coach' and Fay Mansell, Chair of the National Federation of Women's Institutes. As well as the carbon cutting potential of the projects, the communities had to demonstrate that their community is pressing ahead with carbon cutting measures. Those entries which were not selected will be encouraged to return to future rounds with revised projects or funding plans, and those that were successful will now work up the final detail of their proposals before they receive funding.

Twenty-four communities entered the competition in June, requesting £2 million of EEDA funding and this was whittled down by a range of specialists in the field of carbon reduction, including the School of Environmental Studies, University of East Anglia and Renewables East, to nine communities requesting £1 million.

EEDA chair Richard Ellis, commented: "The Cut your Carbon judging day was really inspiring  for all the judges and it is great to see that so many people are coming together around this issue and taking effective action. As a pathfinder round many of the communities shortlisted were already setting the pace in community carbon reduction and their drive and enthusiasm really brought their projects to life.

"The communities involved all gave a clear thumbs up to the Cut your Carbon campaign. It is early days but I am convinced the campaign will snowball over the next couple of years. We hope the impact will be much wider than simply those who win funding, and that other communities will be spurred on and inspired by the actions of these trailblazing communities,  as we were yesterday."

Anyone interested in finding out more should visit the campaign website, http://www.cutyourcarbon.org.uk/ where community groups can contact a community support officer to get help, or come together and measure their carbon emissions by using a unique community carbon footprint calculator. The website allows individuals to find and join a community near them enabling them to work together to cut more carbon emissions from their daily lives.

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