Barking Town Centre low carbon zone
Since it was declared a low carbon zone, the council has worked hard to inspire, lead, guide and ultimately embed the principles of sustainability into the town centre.
Activities:
- Barking has secured a good Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP) deal with British Gas (BG) that will deliver a mix of external solid wall insulation, loft insulation and boiler replacements to homes in the zone over the next six months. Our £120k contribution to these works is matched by £145k from BG and £100k from Barking. This will deliver 4.2 per cent carbon savings against the zone baseline.
- Decent Homes retrofit projects have also been delivered in the zone saving 2.6 per cent against the baseline. A major ‘climate adaptation’ project on two 17-storey tower blocks is underway that will deliver a further 4.7 per cent. This will deliver energy and water savings and cut the risk of overheating and flooding. The investment in mitigation and adaptation works on these projects is estimated to be around £10m.
- St Joseph's RC Primary School has been given a solar photovoltaic (PV) array to provide low carbon electricity free of charge. Ripple Hall community centre has a council funded retrofit and PV project planned for the coming year and council funding is secured for this. Barking is now looking to use the FIT to put PV on all its community buildings and schools, including two schools in the zone.
- The local community is engaged and over 300 residents have received a mix of easy measures, advice, benefits checks, ‘grow-your-own’ seeds and car-club allowances and offers of free insulation. Match funding from energy suppliers maximises the value of investment and makes this is a zero cost offer for all households in the zone.
- A particular success has been the training of three local long-term unemployed residents to become Home Energy Assessors. Two have since gone on to full-time jobs, undertaking the assessments in the zone and now in the wider borough.
- The SME audit and advice project was late in starting due to procurement issues and was slow in taking off. However, recent engagement with the local shopping centre as the facilitator of engagement with its SMEs is proving productive and Barking is confident it will support enough businesses to meet that element of the carbon target.
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