From the horse’s mouth: making a cleaner, greener space for police animals

It’s the area famous for hosting the Grand National, now Merseyside Police is chomping at the bit to keep its horses warm with clean energy.  

The force is in the process of upgrading two of its sites – its dogs and mounted section in south Liverpool and its police academy near St Helens.  

The buildings will benefit from a mixture of upgrades including solar panels, air source heat pumps and new lighting as part of the force’s wider sustainability plans.    

We checked in on their progress as part of our series celebrating success stories from the Low Carbon Skills Fund, owned by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, administered by our team at Salix.  

“The aim for both sites is to remove gas as a primary heat source,” sustainability manager Sharon Luther told us.  

“Our police academy at Lea Green is going to be having a new roof fitted and the mounted site will have upgrades to the roof this year as well.  We’ve got quite an aged estate – so we need quite a lot of investment from a maintenance point of view as well.”  

Solar panels have already been fitted to the roof at the site in Lea Green, which will use a mixture of air source heat pumps, electric hearters and radiant heater panels.  Upgrade work at the mounted police unit base in Allerton is also due to start soon (spring 2026).  

Projected annual energy savings for the Mounted Section are 53.5tCO2e and 108tCO2e in Lea Green – the total is the same as around the same as driving 1.5 million miles in a petrol car.  

Both projects are funded by Phase 4 of the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero’s Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme, also administered by us at Salix.  

“We used our grant from the Low Carbon Skills Fund to draw up plans for these two sites with consultants, so the fact we were successful we credit that with the Low Carbon Skills Fund and the consultants," said Sharon.    

Merseyside Police received almost £500,000 across Phase 1 and Phase 5 of the Low Carbon Skills Fund.  The force was also also granted £758,000 from the Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme to decarbonise its training centre Lea Green with upgrades including air source heat pumps, solar panels, LED lighting, roof insulation and a new energy management system. 
 
"Gaining the Low Carbon Skills Fund and Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme grants has been a game changer for our force," added Sharon.   

"They’ve given us the chance to really get moving with our sustainable energy plans across our buildings.  The funding means we can look at the whole building as one system making sure all the new technologies work together and that we keep disruption to a minimum.  This has been especially important at our Mounted site, which is home to our horses.  Their welfare has been at the heart of every bit of work we’ve done."  

Merseyside Police chief constable, Rob Carden, said:  "We are already seeing the benefits from the LCSF and PSDS grant funding which has really boosted my force’s carbon reduction ambitions.  We’ve now got a clear plan of what we need to do to build a sustainable estate and meet our Net Zero target by 2040, and we’ve been able to begin works at the Mounted and Lea Green Training Centre."  

"Reducing our carbon footprint isn’t just good for the environment, it also means financial savings and better, more efficient facilities for our staff and animals, all while supporting the way we police.  Going forward, we’d definitely take a whole building approach again for any future sustainability projects as it’s saved us so much time and effort when deciding which technologies to employ.”