South Tyneside Council
Fund Size: £280,000
Results: £41,000 saved in electricity alone, with accumulative CO₂ savings of 545 tonnes

South Tyneside Council was keen to be one of the first authorities to be involved with Salix as it demonstrated commitment and leadership to reduce carbon emissions, increase efficiency and reduce costs. In order to ensure that they get the most out of their Salix fund, South Tyneside has a dedicated team of three people, "the more successful you are the more work you generate but that is a good thing as it all contributes positively to reducing emissions", says Andrew Atkinson, scheme manager.

South Tyneside has a well developed environmental strategy that encompasses biodiversity, recycling, and waste as well as carbon. They have been working toward embedding managing their carbon in all decision making processes; and as a result senior management has achieved a sea change in thinking across council from the councillors themselves, staff and contractors. Irene Lucas, Chief Executive of South Tyneside Council said, "Improving the environment is one of the Council’s main priorities. As the largest user of energy in the Borough we have a duty to minimise the carbon impact resulting from our operational activities. I am delighted that this scheme has been so successful and hope other Local Authorities will follow suit. Recycling the financial savings generated from the energy efficiency measures back in to the fund means that we will be able to further improve our performance in future years."

Andrew reinforces this point, "the mechanical and heating engineers as well as the surveyors that work with us are also thinking in a lateral way; instead of just looking at a problem in isolation – they are looking at it more holistically. This change in thinking has enabled us to work far more efficiently and gain better results."

"Salix has become the oil in the wheel for other initiatives; for example we have been able to link the maintenance programme strategy with specific Salix projects which is a much more logical way to work."

Councillor Michael Clare, Cabinet Lead member for the Environment, Housing and Transport added "This award is excellent news for South Tyneside Council. We have been working during the past year with the Carbon Trust to develop our Carbon Management Strategy, which identifies where carbon is produced by the Council’s activities, and the initiatives we can put in place to address these emissions. This project shows we are starting to deliver the actions resulting from the strategy. Much more is to be done but this is a good start. We must all do our bit to reduce carbon dioxide that contributes to Climate Change."

For example, at Temple Park Leisure Centre by changing lighting and operation controls, installing pipe insulation, variable speed drives and new pool covers we anticipate a reduction in energy of 30% compared to consumption in 2003/04 (before investment in energy efficiency started).

Loading of energy consumption has visibly decreased as a result of the scheme.

Back