Shropshire Council seeks £35m loan for solar panel plans
Friday 9th September 2011, 8:00PM BST.
Council chiefs will be asked to approve plans to apply for a loan of up to £35 million to pay for solar panels to be installed on their buildings and council houses at a meeting next week.
Installing solar panels to generate electricity for Shropshire Council and its tenants could slash energy bills by half in some cases, officials claim.
The authority is pushing ahead with its commitment to cut carbon emissions with plans to install the panels on its buildings, including council houses, and improve heating system efficiency at schools and other buildings.
Rising fuel costs are a major drain on resources, both for the council as a whole and tenants living in council houses.
Shropshire Council is working to meet a target of reducing its carbon emissions, including the council’s 4,217 homes, by 35 per cent by March 2014.
At a meeting of the cabinet on Wednesday, members will be asked to approve a recommendation to apply for between £18 and £35 million, depending on the size of panels used, through prudential borrowing on an invest-to-save basis to fund the solar panels.
Officers say the move could potentially reduce energy bills by up to 50 per cent in some cases, helping to tackle fuel poverty while also providing income for the council through the Feed in Tariff.
It will result in estimated savings of about £270 a year for every tenant and a net income of £1 million a year for the council.
Another report being presented to cabinet relates to plans to improve heating efficiency at schools and council buildings under the Government’s Renewable Heat Incentive. The proposal is to replace oil-fired heating systems in around 50 buildings, mostly schools, with a renewable biomass heating system.
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Loan the money take the tax free 13% annual yield from selling the electricty back to the grid and use the money to stop closing schools, and cutting council staff. Let’s hope the have the skill to loan the money at decent interest rate!
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they dont – trust me on that – their prefered method of borrowing is PFI which attacts interest rate returns over 10% – might as well borrow on a credit card !
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LOL! What MORE DEBT! now! put it on the PFI credit card along with the incinerator and the public art, our grandchildren can sort it out later at some point I guess
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i am pleased to see some one taking action on the environment there, just wish they’d recycle more plastics
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The Granville Tip at Telford hs a skip for hard plastics. I now save all mine and drop it of when I pass. I assume they are actually recycling it?
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So, hardworking families in private rent and private ownership will continue to struggle to pay bills, while work-shy scoundrels in their council house will have free electricity and pocket more money for booze and smokes.
And yes, I know not all council house tenant is a work-shy lout, but just one having a cushy ride is one too many and gets my back up.
Its hard working families who subsidise those feed-in tariffs paid to the rich and, now to the workshy (that’s part of the reason my bills are spiralling out of control).
Shropshire Council needs to get a grip; this stinks.
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Oh dear ,
Council houses in shropshire not many of these left most have been passed over to Housing Association or sold to the tenant .
Many council or association tenants are in full time work pay a “full” council tax, and income tax and Ni which is why this government mooted the idea to ask them to hand back the houses.
If this happened which it will not, i assume it would pamper to the over inflated egos of many debt ridden mortgage payers with chips on ones shoulder so create a class they can feel superior over.
The rents on average are £425 for a 3 bed property, council tax is the same as everyone else, as the are water rates.
Private renters are paying for the same property around £550-£650 unfortunately many private working tenants are in receipt of Housing benefit “the hidden story” which is why private rents should be capped dependent on what area you live in, as is the case in many parts of europe.
The comment you have made is very sweeping based on possibly very little information other than that taken from down market tabloids.All rather sad really.
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£18 – £35m???? Well if its anything like the Quantum Leap fiasco then you can double it, then your ‘half price bills’ will be double.
Do the muppets at the council really believe that the manufacturer is selling such a bargain?
The Council should stick to providing Council services and leave energy generation to the experts.
Mark my words, if they go a head it will be another tax-payer’s black hole!
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Why should council house tenants benefit frmo this? its not fair, i am paying for this as a taxpayer and yet i get nothing, they already get a subsidised house and undoubtedly other benefits and no we are going to give them free electricity too? So unfair
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Again council tenants pay rent averaging £425 for 3 bed, full council tax, full water rates everything other than full over inflated UK marketable rentS.
Council and association is classed as affordable rent perhaps the country needs to get a grip on private rentals which are costing the country a fortune in hidden housing benefit payments .
Mortgage payers and home owners two very different breeds are entitled to government money for solar panels many have had their hands on that money already , if these people are to stupid to check this out then more fool them financially aware people were in there first .
All a bit like the tax credit claimants people on 40 k plus were claiming hand over fist that is why this government stopped them.
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Private rents are not costing the country a fortune on housing benefits. The state pays a set benefit appropiate to needs. The tennant pays any extra if they can. If they can’t, if they were my tennant (and I have accepted ‘DSS’ tennants) the will be homeless and an even greater burden on the state.
You see lifes not so easy for some people who through not fault of their own find home-ownership a distant hope.
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I beg to differ having a sister-in-law who deals with HB claims , many private tenants on low incomes/in receipt of tax credits in Shropshire are claiming HB to assist them in meeting the rent, you as the landlord would be unaware of this as it in none of your business, they the tenant or the dhss are under no obligation to inform you of this . Tenants who are claiming full HB etc because of unemployment etc are not the sector i am referring to.
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Where do you get the figure of £475? I can gaurantee that the monthly rent for a council 3 bed is no more than £340! The average for a 3 bed is £320 this includes the 4 weeks rent free period allowance.
Approx 80% of tenants are receiving some form of benefits if not full. So what the above private tenants/owners are saying on here is justified.
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Council or association?? I think your guarantee is worthless as well as incorrect .
I would also say the 4 week free period is also only available to “certain” tenants depends when they took over the house and who they are renting from.
I am also basing some of my info on the shrewsbury and surrounding areas which no longer have “council” housing.
The 80% you refer too who are in receipt of some form of benefits is possibly correct, as any family private ,social, mortgage payers home owners etc on 40 k or less are also in receipt of benefits ie through the child and working tax credit system on par with others.
We can all dress it up as we wish to make one sector look a little better off or worse off ,however the benefits given to the low paid in private rent sector is a serious problem which needs to be addressed.
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PV is the most inefficient way of making electricty imaginable they should spend the money on insulation, insulation, insulation not eye catching stunts which generate less electricty than any other form of renewable and are the most expensive too
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If you look at the cost per unit of co2 saved photovoltaic is one of the worst technologies to deploy. Its only economic because of FIT subsidies – but thats not a good thing taking money of poor bill payers to subsidise this kind of inefficient technology. What we need is more large scale biomass, energy from waste and large scale on shore wind farms, like it or lump it those are the technologies which are proven and bankable, they work and although they are not as cheap as fossil fueled power they are efficient (unlike pV)
sorry to be grumpy old man, i want more renewables but PV is not the best way to do it especially when funds are limited, solar thermal perhaps, wood yes, but PV, No way
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I agree, PV is probably the least economical or productive for this country though I suppose panel prices have fallen in recent years. Ground source heat pumps are also good. You get about 70% of your hot water requirements from this sort of tech. Not so good for single domestic but great way of supplying a new build housing development.
There is an alternative of course….use less. Switch off lights and other electrical appliances when not in use.
Some of the money may well also be better used for an insulation program for households where fuel poverty is an issue.
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“The authority is pushing ahead with its commitment to cut carbon emissions”
The Wakeman School in Shrewsbury has the smallest carbon footprint of any state secondary school in Shropshire…..
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You’re right, the energy efficiency of a building should be the ONLY metric used to determine how valuable it is to the community.
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Yeah, that’s right, let’s close down all those dreadful hospitals, using all that energy to save peoples’ lives. No value to the community at all.
“Energy efficiency should be the ONLY metric used to determine value to the community.”
I suppose it DOES sounds sensible when you say it quickly without thinking.
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“The energy efficiency of a building should be the ONLY metric used to determine how valuable it is to the community.”
Financial cost should never be considered.
So let’s say a budget of £10 million per detached house as a selling price would be acceptable as long as they were energy efficient. Or £20 million. Or £1 Trillion. Or a £Gazillion per house.
If that’s your attitude, I can see why green policies are going to further increase the already crushing burden on average individuals when they’re pursued on a “blow the capital cost, it doesn’t matter” basis.
You’re either very, very rich, living entirely off other peoples’ money and effort or unrealistically green-focussed.
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I refer the honourable gentleman (lady?) to the comment that I have made at 21 in relation to the energy efficiency metric being the only aspect considered when deciding the value of a building to the community.
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What a brainless idea. Solar panels just don’t pay. Is this the council ticking ‘green boxes’ ?
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The only gainers will be the private companies supplying the panels and who are only too happy to get another gift of public money from their benefactors at Shire Hall.
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Yet again more evidence that you are better off in this country not working, no paying council tax, not owning a home, not bothering to set up a business, sit back relax, tune into the x factor, order a pizza and have yourself some offspring, its all on the tax payer for life… nice “work” if you can get it hey
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So have you adopted this utopian life style?
The next thing you will be telling us is that those 20 razor-wire fences around our prisons are to keep the hendonistic unemployed OUT!
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Thats ridiculous the benefits class win again! Surely us hard working home owners should get free panels. Home owners like us that cant afford to drink, smoke, have Sky TV etc. should be getting them, as well as new kitchens, replacement windows and all the other things that you get with a council house. Kind of makes me want to leave my job, be financially no worse off yet have 168 hours to spend with my family each week!
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You do get subsidized panels you seem to be a little slow or uneducated on such matters.
As for new kitchens, windows etc etc for tenants THE SHOCK OF IT well the landlord puts them in “HIS” property and gets RENT from the tenant, why should a tenant pay for the up keep of a landlords property??.
I have more of an issue with private landlords charging high rents and private ten ats getting HB to pay part of it …. I as a tax payer find that more of a problem.
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yes once again lets penalise those of us who are in rented accommodation or who own their own homes.i was recently made redundant and nobody wanted to help me,however if i was in a coucil house theyd bend over backwards ! this should be available to all !!
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sort out your priorities!
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One thing this whole post proves is how gullible, or in fact rather thick many people are on such matters.
They never complain because something is wrong but because “they do not get ” all mind blowing and very British.
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You spelt ‘gullible’ wrong – look it up!
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Silly reply
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Silly reply Andrew
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Andrew Finch makes some valid points here with regard to the private rental market.
Since the government introduced the Local Housing Allowance Scheme (LHA) in 2008, private rents have spiralled. This has mainly impacted upon the working occupier, but also in some cases on the occupier whose income support or jobseekers allowance passports him or her to full LHA entitlement.
The problem here is that LHA is set around room requirements up to a maximum payment for each room level. By way of example, a single householder requiring one room only may potentially be entitled to £95 LHA each week whereas someone whose family size means they would require four or five rooms may be entitled to £200 weekly. These are not actual figures but are merely quoted to highlight my point.
This led to a couple of things – (i) greedy private landlords soon cottoned on and pushed up their rental prices accordingly, and (ii) we saw situations in London where landlords of some large families were receiving LHA of £1000s each month because their tenants were receiving another passported benefit such as income support. For employed occupiers, entitlement reduces according to their income.
The government has since realised the error of its ways and started to limit the maximum LHA rates, with further more stringent restrictions to come in the near future. Added to this will be the introduction of LHA’s replacement, the Universal Credit from 2013 which is likely to be administered by HMRC. If anyone has experienced the tax credit system, then I’m sure you’ll agree that this does not bode well at all for the future. Put it this way, if you think the system is complicated and difficult to follow now, I really do fear it’s about to become a whole lot worse.
What this potentially means is many private tenants are likely to have difficulty in paying their over inflated rent once the restrictions begin to bite. This should be a very real concern and I’m not sure that people quite realise the possible implications yet. Perhaps those greedy private lanldords will reduce their rents back to a more affordable level to accomodate the change?
After all, what is the alternative: empty properties and increasing levels of homelessness?
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Very well put , my sister-in-law has informed me many tenants she has met are indeed paying over inflated rents which even after the tenant gets HB they are still short by on average £100pm which they are having to find from else where, the advise given is to find affordable rental property which is a major problem in shropshire.
It is my view the lenders need to keep a very careful eye on many of these buy to let characters in case they default in the future which i fear they will, due to lack of tenants , or indeed as some rather dodgy ones do which is take the rent over the last 12 months of ownership and fail to pay the mortgage payments, leaving the tenant homeless .
We in the UK cant keep paying large amounts of HB benefits to landlords who see that they are providing roofs as an excuse to dip in to the trough of the tax payer like a fattening pig.
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To all those miffed about benefit scroungers etc.why don’t you just apply for a grant to fit solar panels yourself?
They are available you know.
Or maybe all your hot air could go to heating your own houses.
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this is actually good for the council, whart ever you think about subsidies, they are there and they are very generous, so why not take advantage of them right? farmers round here have been doing it for years, play the system, i’m glad the council has the nouse to play the game and milk the benefits system like that
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Will they be fitted and trialled on Councillors houses first like the trials of the I-pads?
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Does any of the commentators recognise the reality of the huge subsidies available to those who install solar panels these days? You can earn about £800 per annum if you install them on your house, just in subsidies! they also generate a (pitiful) £150 a years worth of electricity, this means they pay for themsleves in 10 years and guarentee a return for 25 years better than any ISA, pension, share or bank account on offer, its a SOUND investment, so the real question should be why not more!???! Some of the councils larger buildings like vehicle depots, waste dumps, and shirehall etc could accomodate really large arrays and generate millions of pounds per annum in subsidy payments alone! this isnt about greenest (PV panels will never produce enough power over their lifetime to payback the energy used to make them) BUT They will earn enough subsidies to payback the investmnet in a pretty short period of time and allow the council to have a sustainable income stream for the next 25 years
good investment, well done (for a change) to the county council
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The govermnment has changed the funding formula against large commercial schemes. What the Council is proposing to do is a large commercial scheme and grant funding is not available. In most schemes you rent the roof space to the installer. Shropshire plan to buy the panels using a commercial loan and they will incur all the maintenance costs.
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Here’s an idea if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, Shropshire Council-
The Wakeman has the lowest carbon dioxide emissions of all of the Shropshire secondary schools. Instead of closing it, why not shut a few of the school prefabs while pupil numbers across Shropshire are in a dip and then build new, green classrooms when they rise again?
This is one of several ideas put forward as alternatives to closure by The Wakeman during the ‘consultation’ on its future. It’s green, doesn’t involve borrowing £millions and saves a school…
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Shutting the school will reduce its carbon footprint to zero.
As Vitruvian says in 9, “You’re right, the energy efficiency of a building should be the ONLY metric used to determine how valuable it is to the community.”
Close the school, keep it closed, it’s worth more to the community as it won’t be using ANY energy. Problem solved, hey, Vitruvian?
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If the councillors all got on their bikes – and pedalled we’d probably make more savings!
One thing, it’s really lovely spending other people’s money and if that runs out then spending their money as a loan, ‘cos basically as a councillor you do not personally have to pay for your mistakes.
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The peddle on a regular basis. Not necessarily their bikes though.
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if its profitable as an investment then why not, mind you thats what they thought about ISLANDIBANKSI hey ?
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i would much prefer this than wind turbines litering the landscape while producing irrelevantly tiny amounts of power for a huge public subsidy
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what with this, the wier hydro project and the incinerator looks like shropshire council is going to become and electricty company – and we know what that means right? service down and prices up up up
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Although I applaud the Council for attempting to go gree, this scheme seems to be the wrong way to go. The scheme will probably end up costing the Council as much as it will receive in benefits.
Fistly, at a time where money is tight, the Council is taking on a commercial debt and interest payments. Would it not be better to rent the roof space to a solar firm, supply the energy to the grid and take the rental income. Maintenance costs should not then be put on the Council. The buildings to be targeted should be those with large South facing or flat roofs e.g. schools and the Shirehall.
Solar energy in the UK has problems. We are just too far North to gain maximum benefit. Income levels from solar energy are over stated.
Are the Council aware that grant funding for large schemes has been pulled by the government or are the Council going to put down the names of each tenant as a seperate applicant?
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Maintenence costs?? On PV panels?? there are no moving parts, why would it need any maintenence? Do you know what a pV panel is Ph7?I doubt it
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Admittedly they do not need much doing to them, but only an idiot would put £35m worth of solar panels on the roof and ignore them for 20 years. Cleaning them and checking the wiring every year would be a sensible move.
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Only an idiot? I bet you the Council havent budgeted anythign for maintenence of these panels
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how come i cant afford them but council house tenants get them?
its really not worth bothering working in this country is it.
Why try?
the government and the council make it too easy for people to doss on the dole for free
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This comment is so Ill informed and ignorant.
I suggest instead of whinging Alison you do your research as many financially astute people have already done and get your solar panels , however they are not totally free nobody gets freebies its a myth flower .
I would point out although some landlords are going to fit these panels including some private and some councils , these panels belong to the landlord NOT the tenant as they do not own the property they are fitted too.
It is on par with you hiring a car from me for a month and i ask you before you give it back fit a set of tires and put it through an MOT before you hand it back I doubt you would so why expect a tenant to maintain a landlords property .Anything if rented or hired or sold should be fit for purpose .
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Actually Andrew Finch, if you actually stop reacting to every perceived attack on tenants and think for a moment, it’s like you hiring a car to me (house) and then paying the petrol bill for me (electricity).
The car would indeed be your responsibilty, but I don’t know many hire companies that include the fuel as well.
Your points about landlords maintaining houses and making good returns, etc., etc., are true but they are misdirected here; there are no genuine complaints about the installation of solar panels on council houses, the genuine complaints arise because the council is intending to the energy produced to the household, as indicated in paragraph four of the story above.
And I, in the private sector, shall have to pay for it.
What’s not to complain about?
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My point is this, you have to pay for it fine, but working council association tenants pay tax also.
We cant all decide what our taxes go on, somethings we approve of some we do not.
At the end of the day the tenant does not own the property yes they will benefit on electric but so do all tenants private or social if the landlord fits double glazing , cavity wall insulation etc etc.It seems to me things like this bring out the worst in people such “I have to pay for it” and from experience the people who seem to shout this the loudest have had their snouts in troughs elsewhere for years.
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Great. That’s just what the public wants right now… no really seriously well done shropshire council you are so in touch with the public mood its unreal!
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As an environmentalist I am pleased to see the council doing this, however for £35million we could do alot more cycle lanes, tree planting, nature reserves and practical carbon saving that photo-voltaics which are very expensive, very inefficient and so we’re grateful the council is going green but they’re not getting the biggest bank for their buck by spending on PV, they should look at the boring practical things first like behavioural change! and new condensing boilers, insulation and low energy lighting, they wont get the same headlines but they would get more cost and carbon savings
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Leaving aside the usual tripe about how all council house dwellers are dole-dossers and all private renters and homeowners are virtuous, hard working, and don’t get a penny in tax credits, housing benefit, child benefit etc. …
What happens is this. If your landlord, who owns the house you live in, puts in solar panels and pulls in the feed-in tariff, while you get some cheap electricity, lucky you.
If you can buy your own panels, you get both the FIT and the cheap (by no means free) electricity, that’s your investment decision and probably a good one. I hope so, I’ve done it.
If your landlord doesn’t make the investment, tough.
If the landlord is the council, you spend no money and your bills go down. The landlord gets the FIT, but as the landlord is the council, that benefits all taxpayers, even the oh-so-noble private renters.
OK, the council will have to borrow the money upfront. But if whoever lends the money is anything like any other lender, they will want evidence that the income will cover the repayments. Otherwise they won’t lend.
So if the council can pull it off, everybody wins.
So stop moaning. And, Alison, I hope you never lose your job.
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Spot on Kath, i do think some comments made by some on here will come back and bite them over the coming few years, most made on assumptions with very little to back them up.
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The trouble with the councillors we have is they will spend the FIT payments on them selves if the last few months are anything to go by
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This could turn out to be one big white elephant as Shirehall will lack the solar intensity the panels require.
The explanation?
We all know the sun always shines on the righteous.
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Not if all the councillors stand with their backs to the panels.
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I would love to get solar panels installed on my house, unfortunatley I live in a conservation area and the only part of my house that gets enough of the sun to make it worthwile is the front!! Would the council waver any objections to me installing them?!?
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Why should they ? you bought a house in a conservation area and i assume knew the limitations that would be put on what you can do to the exterior of the property .
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I’m not saying they should, I’m just pointing out thats its not as easy as you keep saying to have solar panels installed!!
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It is easy for the majority of people i can park 5 cars in my drive some people cant get one by their house it called tough luck .
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No, it’s called living in the sticks
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What have cars and the size of your drive got to do with it? I am not sure luck has anything to do with it either
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muppets
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Solar Panels are a good idea if you have the oney to pay for them – I have generated nearly 1000 KW since March from my small system. The trouble we have here is we need to borrow the money for the systems from a Council that wastes money on schems which only benifit themselves not Shropshire. I have been trying to talk to the ‘IT’ expert over these so called wonderful changes for months but get no comments back because they know they are just toys for them to play with in council meetings when they are bored. Who will pay for this 35 million schols closed, pay reduced more whilst the councillors laugh all the way to their next paid holiday – sorry conference. If this country reduced the number of so called politians we could save billions. Our local councillor has made a living out of this, as his brand new car will show. It is about time these people did some real work and understand how people who do a honest job have to cope
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Errmmm – who’s going to close 35 million ‘schols’ ? You’ve lost me there.
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if they install them all on schools which are being turned into privately run acadamey / free schools or on any public buildings which will clearly then in (keeping with tory religious ideology) offload the assets to private sector chums on the cheap (to make things more ‘efficient’) then who gets to keep the tarrifs? Is this another way for conservatives to gift yet more public money to large corporations again like they did with the disasterous 1980′s privatisations?
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