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News from members June

Energy Efficient Community Buildings Project

Earlier this year, Community Action Northumberland (CAN) launched its new ‘Energy Efficient Community Buildings’ project by hosting a Green Communities course. The aim of the project was to demonstrate that taking action on climate change doesn’t necessarily mean installing expensive renewable technologies, and that every building can make a difference by taking simple affordable measures.

The ‘Energy Efficient Community Buildings’ project, which is funded through Northumberland National Park’s area fund, aims to support community buildings in the Coquetdale and Glendale areas to help reduce their carbon footprint and running costs.

Hosting the Green Communities course proved to be a great start for the project. The course – ‘Energy auditing for your community building’ – takes a practical, down-to-earth approach, focusing on simple steps projects can take. These include: choosing the most appropriate energy tariff, monitoring usage, carrying out energy audits, thinking about users’ behaviour and day-to-day management of the hall, and installing measures such as energy saving light bulbs, thermostatic controls and draught proofing.

More than 20 delegates attended the course, including CAN and National Park staff, and representatives from around a dozen community buildings. Feedback was excellent and everyone appreciated the straightforward approach.

After the course, staff from CAN – which supports communities and voluntary groups throughout rural Northumberland on a range of issues – continued to work with eight community buildings to undertake energy audits. They also allocated grants totalling £6,000 to help the groups implement the findings.

The buildings then identified their own priorities, with some of the more imaginative measures to be implemented including: the purchase of ‘chimney balloons’ (a device for preventing the loss of heat in disused chimneys), motion sensors (to ensure lights are switched off when no-one is in the room), and door closers (to prevent unnecessary heat loss through open doors).

The project has proved very successful, with many of the buildings taking part planning further initiatives such as upgrading the insulation of the building, considering renewable energy options and hosting energy saving events for their whole community. There is also the potential to influence the wider communities around the buildings, many of which do not have access to mains gas. They are often ideally located to benefit from community-wide renewable energy projects which capitalise on the widely available natural resources all around them.

CAN is now seeking further funding for this small-scale project – which is part of their wider ‘Going for Green’ campaign – and to continue working with these communities, extending the project into other areas of rural Northumberland.

For more information about the project, contact Marc Johnson at: The Centre, 27 Fenkle Street, Alnwick, NE66 1HW. Alternatively call: 01665 605540 or email: marcjohnson@ca-north.org.uk.

Free NEA training offered nationally

National Energy Action (NEA) is now running free training sessions for groups which provide support services to families with young children. The sessions are three hours and educate people about fuel poverty, plus the grants and schemes that are available to help them.

The aims of the sessions are to raise awareness and understanding of the impact of poor housing conditions on the health of children and young people, enable those working with vulnerable families to communicate effectively on energy efficiency issues and to provide factual information to support lasting impact

Not only are NEA offering free information sessions, but they are also paying for the venue, the refreshments and if two sessions can be arranged on the same day running back to back, they will also provide lunch and hold a raffle to win a low energy gadget!

To find out more about the sessions contact: 0191 261 5677 or email: lynsey.thompson@nea.org.uk. Alternatively you can visit : www.nea.org.uk.