Calderdale sports centre's given £1.7m to replace heating system

Calderdale Council Cabinet members gave their support to a bid made for the money to the Government’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) for Todmorden Sports Centre at Ewood Lane, Todmorden.

Installing the new system will depend on the application to the fund being successful.

With the decarbonisation scheme costing £2 million overall, councillors also agreed to recommend to full council that it be added to the authority’s capital programme for 2022-23 and that council agrees to additional revenue funding of £23,000 – this will be needed to service the prudential borrowing (£350,000) required to complete the project.

The intention is also to put solar panels on the roof to help mitigate potential increased energy costs in the future, as well as further moving away from using fossil fuels in the heating system.

Coun Scott Patient (Lab, Luddenden Foot), Cabinet member for Climate Change and Resilience, said the fund offered an opportunity which would help the council’s response to the climate emergency, delivering a 70 per cent reduction in carbon emissions from the site.

“What it (the funding phase) intends to do is deliver heat pumps which are over £1 million, and Todmorden Sports Centre is considered a front runner because it is reaching the end of its life,” he said, referring to the centre’s heating system.

The timescale in event of a successful bid would be tight, he said, with successful applicants able to spend the money from April 1 this year and projects to be completed by March 31, 2023.

The council has a long and successful relationship with Salix, the company which provides the interest-free Government funding to councils for such schemes, said Coun Patient.

He reminded colleagues the council has successfully used funding from an earlier phase – this is phase three – for the Re: Fit projects which have made older council building heating systems energy efficient.

Councillors have heard in the past these projects are not only saving energy but also money with the hope that eventually they will cover their costs.

Cabinet heard Salix opened for applications from October 6 last year for four weeks and the council put in a bid – also noting it is on a “first come, first served” basis and previous phases have been heavily oversubscribed.

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