18th July 2019
Earlier today in respose to a question Cllr Gregor Murray announced new plans to install Solar Panels into schools and on government owned buildings. He said today in his speech at Full Council:
As a result of the dedicated and diligent work of Cllr Howe and the Council’s Officers in identifying suppliers and funding partners, I am delighted to announce today that Yes, we will be seeking to install ethically manufactured Solar Power and potentially other alternative energy generating devices, on to the roofs of our Borough’s schools, Leisure centres, libraries and some other, suitable council owner properties, starting during the next school year.
I must stress that this is not the work of an instant. There are many technical hurdles that have to be overcome when pairing state of the art energy generating equipment with schools and other buildings, many of which are older than some of my colleagues. I commit to informing all members and residents when installation is ready to begin.
I am also pleased to announce that, following agreement from the Executive member for Finance, once costs have been taken into account, any cost savings or profits from selling energy to the national grid, will be passed back to the individual school to supplement their discretionary budget. In many of our schools power represents up to 6% of their total annual budget. We estimate that as a result of these two programmes our borough’s schools will have upwards of 25% of their current energy budget to invest into essential equipment, maintenance, teachers and other items.
Our priority will be to ensure that all council run and maintained schools are included in this scheme first, but we will also seek to make this offer available to all our Borough’s Academy schools.
Cllr Murray has also created a new Facebook Group (Wokingham Borough Enviromental Ideas) where residents can share feedback and ways to improve the enviroment with each other and the council.
