Lewisham Central low carbon zone
The Lewisham Central low carbon zone is a place of contrasts, including a busy main road, green spaces and quiet residential streets.
Activities:
- Lewisham is well on track with carbon saving projects. It is having particular success with its residential retrofit project, which offers free loft and cavity wall insulation (mix of GLA, council and Carbon Reduction Emissions Target (CERT) funding). Installation rates are over 70 per cent where the measure has been feasible. GLA is also match-funding solid wall insulation and boiler replacements with Community Energy Saving Programme (CESP) and CERT funding and the council’s contribution. Other activities include:
- Lewisham Fire Station has made over 50t CO2 per annum savings through works including new boilers, lighting and heating controls, and solar thermal.
- Lewisham Hospital has made 508t CO2 per annum savings under a work plan approved by its board with input from the council using its LCZ status.
- Action for Refugees in Lewisham, a locally-based third sector organisation, was awarded a grant of £56,000 from Scottish Power in a project developed to deliver energy efficiency and fuel poverty advice to refugees in the zone and the surrounding area. In addition, community engagement through ‘participatory budgeting’ (where residents vote on their preferred project to be delivered) has brought through new recycling facilities and a community garden.
- People living and working in the zone were given the chance to vote on which environmentally themed items they wanted distributed around the area. They voted in favour of more recycling facilities within the zone. In response, large recycling bins decorated in a cowhide print were placed in estates within the zone. Recycling levels have already significantly increased.
- Future projects include community projects such as the development of a derelict and overgrown 'drying area' into a community garden.
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