Green Grant Awarded to 12 Communities Across the UK

Twelve communities around the UK have been awarded a green grant, worth up to £500,000 each, to help install a number of green technologies.

Work that may be carried out as a result of the grant includes insulation, energy efficient double glazing to keep more heat inside the home, wind turbines, solar power and other renewable energy technology.

As well as cutting down on greenhouse gas emissions, such measures will work to help ensure that fuel bills are kept down for homeowners – which is especially important in the face of long term gas price rises.

The minister for energy and climate change, Joan Ruddock, said that this kind of action is particularly vital due to the fact that over a quarter of greenhouse emissions in the UK come from activities such as heating and lighting our homes, or through the use of electrical appliances within our homes.

Ruddock added that ‘by 2050 this needs to be almost zero and we can only achieve that through the creative initiative of local communities’.

The prize money has been awarded to the communities across the country through the government’s Low Carbon Community Challenge grant fund. This fund was set up to inform the government about local measures that help to cut down on carbon emissions.

Some of the winning towns are located in Exmoor, Cheshire, Halton and Middlesbrough, and money has been awarded to a mixture of both wealthy and deprived areas.

The area of Easterside in Middlesbrough has stated that they will use the award to help save their residents money on energy bills, by installing renewable energy systems and wind turbines.