Cotswold District councillors have agreed to set aside £120,000 for plans to make their buildings more environmentally friendly.
The council was successful in bidding for £1.237m of Government funding earlier this year which will go towards solar panels, ventilation units and air source heat pumps which absorb heat from the outside air to heat buildings and water.
And now councillors have agreed to allocate £120,000 to support the project and avoid unnecessary delays if the costs exceed the initial estimates.
One of the conditions of the Government grant requires the works to be completed by September 30.
So there is a risk the project may not be completed by then and the funding could be reclaimed by the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.
However, councillors say it seems unlikely that BEIS would wish to reclaim the funding if the project is well underway.
Climate change and forward planning cabinet member Rachel Coxcoon said: “The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is running a financial incentive scheme called the public sector decarbonisation fund which as the name suggests is to help the public sector reduce their carbon emissions.
“We were awarded just over £1.2m which is fantastic to put in air source heat pumps, solar PV and some mechanical ventilation and heat recovery in most of our buildings, including, most significantly, our leisure centres.
“We have now received all the contract paperwork. Work is proceeding at pace. “
However, she said there is a risk in the council continuing with the project as they have a very short deadline and will be competing with other local authorities to buy the equipment needed.
“Because the government department in charge has put in place really very, very short timetables for what is very technical, quite complex work,” she said.
“And this has been confounded by the fact that we aren’t the only council
“We are all after the same kit from largely the same suppliers at the same time.”
The £120,000 which will be set aside will come from £980,000 which was allocated for the purchase of a site in Moreton-in-Marsh which did not go ahead last year.
