Calderdale's eco-efficient building projects meet funding deadline

The air source unit, which is being put into use at Todmorden Market Hall, is a special smaller one than often used, and is manufactured by Mitsubishi in Japan.

It is one of a number of Calderdale schemes which have won funding to make council buildings more efficient – using less energy to produce the power they need.

Councillors also heard another major scheme getting under way in Todmorden will see £2 million invested at Todmorden Sports Centre, which includes the town’s swimming pool.

This project has seen the council securing just over £1.7 million in funding to pay for the scheme, with £350,000 match funding coming from the authority itself.

Funding will see rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, which convert sunlight into electrical energy, placed on the Ewood Lane leisure centre’s roof, a microfiltration system for the pool and air source heat pumps to power its systems.

Also included is the money needed to build a new sub-station to enable upgrades of the power system, the pool’s air handling unit and controls with remote monitoring capability.

Calderdale Council’s lead officer for contracts and commercial management, Andrew Sharpe, said designs for the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) stage 3 level have been completed by Viridian Consulting and the council has tendered the work packages.

Contracts have now been awarded for all three tenders – including a £1.5 million contract for the heat pump, which has gone to a Calderdale company, and these will be signed on July 1.

Timescales on all these projects are very strict to meet the funding requirements but Mr Sharpe said Calderdale has an established working relationship with Salix, which provides funding on behalf of the Government, and reports to the funder on progress.

In the case of Todmorden Sports Centre on-site work is expected by December and the scheme has to be fully delivered by March 31 next year.

Coun Silvia Dacre (Lab, Todmorden), who is the council’s Cabinet member for Resources, said about the market project: “It must have been a bit stressful when you were not getting your heat pump in there.”

Mr Sharpe said it had landed safely and now installed – the small size meant it had to be obtained from the Japanese company.

It had been challenging but “we are at the finishing line now and it’s a good result.”

Ground source heat pumps at Bankfield Museum, Halifax, Brighouse Library and Art Gallery, and Spring Hall, Halifax, and air source heat pumps at Halifax Town Hall and Manor Heath, Halifax, will also have achieved the necessary completion by the June 30 deadline.

Mr Sharpe said the council was hoping a £130,000 bid to the Low Carbon Skills Fund (LCSF) – for ten sites involving 16 buildings – would be successful though the outcome was not certain, but the authority was confident funding could e obtained from an expected third phase of the Government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, expected to open for bidding from summer 2023.

“It isn’t going to stop, there will be other decarbonisation funding continued to remove fossil fuels from our buildings, and we are pretty agile and ready to take on the challenge,” he told the council’s CAFM Asset Management Board, which looks after the council’s building and estate.