Sunday 23 January 2022

Brent Council to invest £3.24m to slash carbon emissions from some of its public sector buildings

 Brent Council Press Release


Sports centres and libraries in Kilburn, Willesden and Harlesden are among the buildings benefiting from a £3.24 million investment to slash carbon emissions from public sector buildings in Brent.

Improvements kick off in Northwick Park, where an energy saving Ground Source Heat Pump is being installed in the Pavilion. You would need to plant a whopping 1,571 trees every year to match the carbon savings.

The pump works by transferring the heat that is already in the ground outside into a building or home, to heat radiators, give underfloor heating or to heatwater.

Councillor Krupa Sheth, Cabinet Member for Environment said: 

Homes and buildings have a huge carbon footprint, yet it can be challenging and expensive to tackle this within existing and older public sector buildings. We’re thrilled that we’re able to use innovative technology and ideas to improve energy efficiency and help us in our journey to zero carbon emissions by 2030.

In Brent, the funding will be used across council buildings including:

Brent Civic Centre
Barham Park Complex
Granville Centre
Gordon Brown Outdoor Centre
Northwick Park Pavilion
Preston Park Sports Pavilion
Harlesden Library
Kilburn Library
New Millenium Day Centre
Ealing Road Library
The Library at Willesden Green
The Ade Adepitan Short Break Centre
Tudor Gardens 27-31
John Billam Resource Centre
Willow Children's Centre

The government-led, Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme (PSDS) is offering funding worth over £1bn in the first phase, giving the public sector a helping hand to increase energy efficiency and heat decarbonisation within council-owned community buildings, sports centres, libraries and other public, non-domestic buildings.

Additional information

The work at Northwick Park Pavilion will also include cavity wall insulation and LED lighting, and along with other improvements this will lead to a 26% reduction in overall energy use.  This translates to the savings of:

  • 747,445kWh/yr energy savings

  • £44,104 £/yr total cost savings

  • 134.3 CO2 te/yr carbon savings which is the equivalent of 1,571 trees planted/yr

The PSDS is being delivered by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and in partnership with Salix. Brent Council has appointed Ameresco Ltd. to carry out the works.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

'older public sector buildings' - The Library at Willesden Green???

Martin Francis said...

I know and Brent Civic Centre which was supposed to be the greenest public building in Brent, London or Uk - I forget the actual designation.

Anonymous said...

Here’s the info the Brent Civic Centre from Brent Council website:

“Brent Civic Centre is officially recognised as the greenest public building in the UK, through its BREEAM Outstanding accreditation. Information about the sustainable elements of the centre can be found in the building case study (.pdf, 636.7kB) which formed part of the BREEAM assessment.”

https://www.brent.gov.uk/media/6147637/Brent%20Civic%20Centre%20building%20case%20study%20for%20BREEAM%20November%202013.pdf



Martin Francis said...

This was information about the Civic Centre in 2010:

The building, designed by Hopkins Architects, with town planning, environmental, structural design and sustainable technology advice provided by Scott Wilson, will be constructed opposite Wembley Arena. The construction job will be worth £75m, according to the OJEU notice.

Council bosses say the scheme - which incorporates low-carbon technology with a combined cooling, heating and power system running on waste vegetable oil - will be the greenest of its kind in the country.

Brent Council chief executive Gareth Daniel said: “I am delighted that planning permission has been granted unanimously and the building can now go ahead. It brings us one step nearer to realising our ambitious vision for Wembley and helps us to deliver better services and facilities to local people.”

It didn'topen until October 2013 and then the cost was put at £100m but it was hard to get full information on the costs: https://wembleymatters.blogspot.com/2011/07/brent-civic-centre-costs-shrouded-in.html

Paul Lorber said...

This is funding from our taxes allocated to Brent by Central Government but don't expect any acknowledgement of this from statements from Labour Councillors who will simply claim credit.

£3.24 million may seem a lot but as most schemes are very expensive this sum will only pay for a few projects. I agree that it is odd to place the Brent Civic Centre at the top of the list and I expect that the Civic Centre may only need some new lights as LED technology has moved on from 2010.

The real investment will be needed in some of the older buildings. Barham Park Community Library for example has very old metal single glazed windows and it takes a lot of energy from our gas boiler to warm the place up for our Memory Lounge elderly and other users.

Replacing the windows in the whole Barham Complex will cost in excess of £250,000 with extra money needed for insulation and more efficient lighting and heating systems. I have been suggesting bids for NCIL money by the Barham Park Trust for at least 3 years but as any decision making at the Council moves at tortoise pace opportunities have been missed while energy is wasted.

I wonder what the score in terms of carbon emissions is being caused by all the smashing up of perfectly good pavement slabs in Wembley High Road at present. I bet Krupa Sheth does not know and would be far too ashamed to reveal the damage caused.

Martin Francis said...

Hopefully we will get a proper breakdown of costs for the various projects without any exclusions for 'commercial reasons.'

David Walton said...

No heat pump funds for the Carlton Granville Centres of South Kilburn Land then?

Clearly these since C19 key Kilburn shared community assets are still Brent regarded as being surplus brownfield land/ 'other ideas' to tower on soon instead.

Anonymous said...

So, if the data provided by Brent Council is correct the hardly used Pavilion's energy use has been costing Brent residents £169,630 per year. Whoever is running Brent Parks should be sacked for this along with the Cabinet Member responsible. Why has this not been brought up at scrutiny?