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£1.2m project axed
Mar 2, 2010
AN ambitious million pound project to heat more than 100 upper dale homes through a community boiler system has been abandoned, the Mercury can reveal.
The organisation behind the eco-friendly Middleton-in-Teesdale scheme said it took the decision because it has been unable to secure the £1.2million of funding needed.
If the project had gone ahead, a biomass boiler burning woodchip would have provided heating for more than 100 homes in the east of Middleton, as well as the primary school and village hall.
The scheme, the first of its kind in the UK, was expected to have slashed heating bills in the village.
The organisation behind the scheme is Community Energy Solutions (CES), a not-for-profit group established by the Government to help communities lower carbon emissions and switch to environmentally-friendly fuel and technologies.
Lorraine Dobson, project manager at CES, said the recession had played a part in the failure to secure funding.
“We have been trying for the last couple of years to secure a funding package for quite a sizeable investment,” she said.
“But we have not been able to find sufficient grant funding to finance the scheme. It is a considerable investment and if we could have pulled it off we would have.”
Ms Dobson said CES had taken the decision not to pursue the scheme “in recent weeks”.
Lib Dem MEP for the North East Fiona Hall visited the proposed site for the project last year.
She said: “It is very disappointing that the biomass district heating project for Middleton-in-Teesdale has had to be dropped, after all the hard work that has been put in by Community Energy Solutions and local people.”
Ms Hall said the Government has done too little to support renewable energy schemes, leaving the UK lagging behind other European countries.
She added: “I hope that Middleton-in-Teesdale will nevertheless be able to go forward with alternative renewable energy options.”
Middleton-in-Teesdale Parish Council chairman John Cronin said the news was “disappointing”.
“It was a pioneering development and it sounded marvellous. It is a great shame it won’t go ahead,” he said.
Cllr Cronin said there is still a need for alternative energy sources in Middleton, which is off the gas network and reliant on increasingly expensive fossil fuels.
Under the boiler system, wood chip is burned to heat water, which is then carried through underground pipes to the connected properties.
The heat then goes in to heating systems via an exchanger, and can be controlled and programmed
using thermostats like central heating.
Ms Dobson said CES is now investigating other eco-friendly projects that could be suitable for Middleton. “We are looking at the feasibility of different technologies for the area – there are lots of possibilities,” she said.