Measures to modernise Leicestershire County Council's headquarters and other properties - making them more environmentally friendly - are helping to reduce carbon emissions by 380 tonnes a year, says the local authority.

The council has carried out wide-ranging improvement work at County Hall in Glenfield, and other buildings that it owns, to save energy, money and to protect the environment.

It is also offering advice to households who are concerned about rising energy prices, and has a range of information and support available HERE.

The authority, which declared a climate emergency in 2019 and pledged to make its own operations carbon neutral by 2030, has used a £3.5 million Government Public Sector Decarbonisation Scheme grant to cut emissions from many parts of its estates by using renewable sources of energy.

The upgrades installed with the grant will save the council an estimated £130,000 per year, and reduce carbon emissions by 380 tonnes a year.

Work carried out as part of the grant include:

• The installation of a 90,000 litre thermal storage tank, which holds water heated by a biomass boiler fuelled by woodchip, and provides entirely renewable heat to most of the Glenfield County Hall campus.
• Additional solar panels installed on the roofs of the County Hall campus.
• Air source heat pumps have been installed in the cabins, sports hall and visitor centre at the council-owned Beaumanor Hall in Woodhouse.

The county council's cabinet lead member for resources Councillor Lee Breckon said: "The cost of energy and the environmental impact of how we create it is one of the most important discussions anybody is having right now.

"But we've been working to address those issues surrounding our own estate for a while now using the modern technology in our older buildings.

"It's paying off environmentally by reducing harmful emissions but also importantly insulating the council, and therefore taxpayers, against the shocking energy price rises we are seeing."

Further measures are also planned to reduce the county council's carbon footprint and energy costs with the construction of a solar farm on council-owned farmland near Quorn set to begin in 2023.

The ambitious project will save the council £600,000 in energy bills and save nearly 3,000 tonnes of carbon emissions a year, by creating electricity from sunlight.