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Localise West Midlands
The Warehouse
54-57 Allison Street
Digbeth
Birmingham
B5 5TH
Tel: 0121 685 1155
Fax: 0121 643 3122
Email: info@localisewestmidlands.org.uk
Registered in England and Wales as a company limited by guarantee (not for profit) no: 6239211
Localise West Midlands has been working, with consultancy Encraft*, for Birmingham City Council on proposals for a city-wide Green New Deal scheme - which is now being set up ready to pilot in some areas of the city following approval by Cabinet at the end of January 2010.
The Birmingham GND is a £40 million retrofit project starting as a pilot across four areas of Birmingham. This innovative project will offer whole house energy efficiency retrofits and solar photovoltaic installations at economic costs to private householders across the city, and is designed specifically to create jobs and business opportunities for local firms. The scheme is the first major project in the UK to use the 'feed in tariff' (a payment to householders/private operators for renewables contributions to the grid) as a mechanism to scale up installations, to enable domestic renewables across the social spectrum, and hopefully to become self-funding right across the city.
The Birmingham Green New Deal emphasises the development of local supply
chains - fitting, supplying and manufacturing - particularly through small
local businesses and social enterprises with training schemes. So there
will be jobs created in local enterprise that meets local needs - good
for redistribution and local economic empowerment as well as fuel poverty,
energy security and low carbon economic development - a contrast to recent
news such as the corporate takeover of Cadburys and reliance on volatile
inward investment.
Localise WM along with Encraft (as lead technical advisors) developed the business plan for the project over the last few months under the auspices of the City Council and both organisations will also be involved in steering the initiation of the project. We suspect this is the first proposal for delivery of the 'retrofitting' ideas outlined in the national Green New Deal report, and are delighted that the Council has so enthusiastically adopted these ideas. We are continuing to work with Encraft and the council on the scheme
*technical lead consultants on Birmingham's Green New Deal.
News coverage:
Birmingham Post 18th Feb 2010
Birmingham Mail 22nd Jan 2010
Regen.net 22nd Jan 2010
The Stirrer 22nd Jan 2010 - raises important issues regarding potential debt situations for those participating in the scheme, which LWM has addressed here.