Villagers win funds for greener future

The village of Hook Norton is one of 12 communities to have won up to £500,000 each to adopt green technologies such as solar panels, hydro turbines and insulation, the Department of Energy and Climate Change has announced.

The grant money, awarded through the Government’s Low Carbon Community Challenge, will be spent on a range of green measures which will cut carbon, save money on energy bills, and could even see some communities make cash from generating their own energy.

The money will be spent in Hook Norton on installing a heat recovery system, solar panels, two community electric pool cars and a ground source heat pump at the Hook Norton Church of England Primary School. It will also insulate 40 homes and install solar thermal panels on another 20, put a bio-diesel tank in the local Hook Norton brewery and supply bio-diesel fuel for the vehicles of 50 households.

Energy and climate change minister Joan Ruddock said the winners would act as a test bed for green action “and show us all what a greener future looks like”.

She said: “The huge enthusiasm for the Low Carbon Communities Challenge demonstrates that local people are passionate about building a low carbon future in the UK.

“This sort of action is vital because over a quarter of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions come from heating, lighting and powering electrical appliances in our homes. By 2050 this needs to be almost zero and we can only achieve that through the creative initiative of local communities.”

Hook Norton Managing Director James Clarke said: “The community has been working on reducing its carbon footprint for a number of years and we fully support what they are doing. All these activities will provide income back in to a rolling low carbon fund so that the community can continue to take action for the next 10 years.”