An example of a whole-place approach in Cumbria
Ambleside is a Cumbrian community aiming to drive down their carbon emissions using a whole-place approach.
Take a look at what they’ve been doing, for some inspiration and ideas by visiting the Ambleside Action for a Future website
Watch our short videos on the left to see what’s been happening in Ambleside.
The first was filmed in 2020, highlighting their vision for getting Ambleside to Zero Carbon by 2030 and focussing on their community growing work.
The second was filmed in 2021, describing the projects that have been developed to help achieve that vision. These include working with the community to install solar PV, improve home energy efficiency and raise awareness by calculating their carbon emissions.
The third is an ITV news item, covering an event during the Sep 2021 Great Big Green Week, launching these projects to the local community and providing support to local businesses to decarbonise.
Ambleside Community Energy
During 2020 A to Z explored options for setting up a community renewable energy project in Ambleside, with the support of CAfS and Quantum Strategy and Technology.
Their first exercise was to identify the most effective renewable energy technology to focus on. As previous solar PV mapping had identified the good potential for solar PV in Ambleside, and the town was not considered ideal for other technologies, such as district heating, they decided to focus on solar PV.
The team approached many community buildings to gauge their interest in being part of the project and many indicated that they were. Unfortunately, no buildings have roofs large enough to sustain a stand-alone community-owned energy project now that the government Feed-in-Tarif subsidy has ended, so they needed to think creatively.
Instead they have worked with CAfS to develop two parallel projects to increase the amount of solar PV in Ambleside. The first is designed for larger community buildings, where we are working with the Big Solar Co-op and the second, ‘Solar Made Easy in the Lakes’ is designed to support individual home and small business owners to invest in solar PV for their own roofs.
To find out more:
- Visit the AAFAF website
- Check out the Big Solar Co-op model
- Check out our Solar Made Easy project page
Supported by Westmorland and Furness Council
