Reminder: 5-year anniversary tonight at 7.30pm, Primary School

Everyone is welcome to join us in celebrating the 5 year anniversary of the project. There will be bubbly and soft drinks and cupcakes plus presentations by the school children, the 2010 carbon footprint survey and information about how we plan to spend the £400,000 DECC grant on a microgrid and community electric car.

We'll be filming the event too. Please try and come along

'Letters from the future film project' gets £4000 DECC grant

Our proposal to engage the younger people of the village by producing a 'Letters from the Future' film with producer Beth Barlow has received the go ahead and been awarded a £4000 grant from DECC. We'll explain more at our public meeting on the microgrid project and electric caar plans (see story below) on 7 October, 7.30-9pm at the Primary School. All welcome.

DECC issues £400,000 grant offer

We are delighted to report that the Ashton Hayes Going Carbon Neutral Project has weathered recent government spending reviews to be awarded a £400,000 grant that will finance a range of zero-carbon energy generation technologies for the village. The funds will be managed via the Parish Council.

The grant, awarded by the Department of Energy and Climate Change under its Low Carbon Communities Challenge project, will be used to install a sustainable combined heat and power biodiesel boiler to supply heat and electricity to Ashton Hayes Primary School and feed the surplus into the community microgrid. The grant also covers the installation of photovoltaics on the roof of the primary school and a ground heat store to accumulate excess heat for use in the winter. Wind power generation is not being funded by the DECC grant. The project is due for completion in this financial year.

Click to read more ...

BITC accolade for our project instigator

Garry Charnock, our co-chair with Roy Alexander, has been awarded the BITC Leadership for Sustainability award 2010 in the North West. The award is in recognition of his "Inspirational leadership for his work within the community and world-wide business networks, as the part time CEO of the Carbon Leapfrog Charity". Representatives from Lancaster University Management School, which sponsors the award, described Garry as 'an established leader' for his work in Ashton Hayes and presented him with his trophy at the annual BITC event at Blackburn Rovers Football Ground on 24 June. For more details click here.

DECC funding - still awaiting offer letter

We are eagerly awaiting the offer letter from DECC to confirm they will fund our new combined heat and power plant and PV array for the primary school. They are reviewing some issues regarding State Aid and we are drawing on the support of Carbon Leapfrog for advice. We'd like to thank law firm Bird & Bird for their free support and hope we can report positive news soon.