Last week saw another win for Bracknell Forest Council as they took home the Regional Council or Local Authority Body of the Year award at the South East Regional Energy Efficiency Awards.
The South East Regional Energy Efficiency Awards are an opportunity to recognise and celebrate all energy best practice across the region, and is open to national companies as well as smaller regional ones and local authorities. Sustainable Energy Officer, Hazel Hill and The Mayor of Bracknell Forest, Cllr Ankur Shiv Bhandari attended to collect the award.
The Local Authority of the Year award recognises all the work achieved over the past year, including:
- conducting improvement work to the borough’s most fuel inefficient homes, almost 700 households in the past year
- consulting with new developments in the borough to ensure they meet renewable energy requirements
- bidding for government grants to fund future improvement work, such as insulation and cavity walls to make homes in the borough more energy efficient
- identifying homes still using electric storage heaters and connecting them to the mains gas network
Through the council’s efforts, Bracknell Forest has now been named as having the 5th lowest number of people in fuel poverty in the UK and efforts will continue to reduce this further. In addition, the borough also has an average of a band C Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating across all its homes. An EPC gives a property an energy efficiency rating from A (most efficient) to G (least efficient) and is valid for 10 years. The government ambition is for all UK homes to be at least a C rating by 2035.
Cllr Mrs Dorothy Hayes MBE, Executive Member for Environment, said:
“This is another fantastic achievement for our climate change team, and I am so proud of all their hard work so far.
“A special congratulations goes to our Sustainable Energy Officer, Hazel Hill who has led the way in our energy efficiency work and as a result has changed the lives of so many in the borough.
“However, the hard work does not stop here. We have lots of exciting projects from our climate change action plan, that we are rolling out this year.”
Visit the climate change action plan to learn more about how Bracknell Forest Council is tackling the effects of climate change.
